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Progress and Poverty

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Derided by superficial socialists as defending private propery in the fruits of one's labor, and by superficial liberatarians as defending common rights of access to the earth, Progress and Poverty is actually a tour-de-force assertion of the classical liberal position that the earth and its rent are common property. It thoroughly demonstrates, with clear and rigorous logic, what Marx realized far too late in his life -- that the monopoly of capital was not a natural phenoenon, but the result of the state-created monopoly of land, through titles that allow landlords to usurp community-created rents.

George's prescription, to fund government from land rents, or land value tax, had been espoused by many classical liberals, including Locke, Smith, Mill, Jefferson, Penn, Franklin, and the French "laissez faire" physiocrats. The most concise argument predating George was put forward in Tom Paine's essay, "Agrarian Justice." George's contribution, then, was not the idea of taxing land, but the economic analysis and compelling arguments for doing so. Similarly, many subsequent leaders and economists have agreed that land value tax is the best tax (and are listed on the earthharing website), but have not pursued the issue with the vigor shown by George.

George debunked several myths that are still propagated today, such as that population growth causes of poverty, that it is natural for capital to employ labor, that government control can effectively remedy poverty, and, most of all, that the economic dynamics governing capital can be blindly applied to land and natural resources.

Although it is clearly and logically written, the sentences are sometimes long and complex, requiring the reader to go back and parse them carefully. It is therefore a rather heavy read. The tone of the book is unique in that it is passionately assertive without comporomising its rigorous logic.

Progress & Poverty is the missing puzzle piece for those of us who look around at the combination of magnificent and accelerating technological progress and the increasingly distorted distribution of income and wealth in America, with many people lacking sufficient income to meet their most basic needs, and wonder what went wrong in a country which professes to be dedicated to the proposition that we're all created equal.

The book's subtitle -- An Inquiry in the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth... The Remedy -- describes it beautifully: why we have the ups and downs of our economy, which cause incredible human misery, and why we have increasing poverty at the same time that there is hugely increasing wealth.

And Henry George provides a logical and workable -- even elegant -- remedy, one which will untangle many of the perverse incentives we cope with today: we say we value work, but we tax it. We say we want to promote sales, but we tax them. We say we want to encourage entrepreneurial effort, but we allow huge barriers designed to discourage the person with an idea from being able to execute it. We say we want a society that naturally creates more jobs, but we allow a relative few of us to pocket the funds which would create those jobs. We say we value initiative, but we reward the "dog in the manger" far more than we reward the laborer. We say that urban blight is a bad thing, but our tax code encourages it. We say we dislike urban sprawl, and long commutes, and low wages -- but we've failed to implement the simple tax reform that will correct these ills. We work longer hours than our counterparts in other countries, and have less to show for it. We allow a relative few to own our airwaves, and resell them at higher and higher prices, collecting advertising revenues from all who would run for public office or advertise their products.

If we truly mean to end poverty, to reward initiative, to ensure that the next child born in America is truly the equal of all who are here today, to ensure that our environment is protected for the common good, George's framework for understanding provides the missing puzzle piece.

And as we consider what sort of country we'd like Iraq to be, it is worth considering that if we only give them a constitution without giving them an economic system that considers all people equal, truly equal, we've not accomplished much with the American lives we've lost there.

If we can figure it out for Iraq, with all its oil wealth, maybe we can figure out how to share America justly among Americans, too.

George lays out simply and elegantly what the underlying problem is and how to solve it.

He dedicates the book "To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state and would strive for its attainment." Might you be among those who see and feel, and would strive, if only you could see the source of the problem?

Churchill, Twain, Huxley, Shaw and many others came to see what George was pointing out. Will you?

This one is worth your time!

Get a copy for yourself, and send one to your favorite legislator, be he/she local, state or federal. Then start looking for other Georgists, also known as Geoists. You'll find them a lively group with a vision that might inspire you, too. And it is refreshing to be with people who seek a finer society, not more advantage or privilege -- "private law" -- for their own benefit!

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book, written over a hundred years ago, is the accuracy of the predictions that Henry George made on what would happen if solutions other than the one he proposed would be followed. The only alternative to his sollution which he said would also work to reduce the difference between rich and poor was the use of government regulation. This has to some extent been taken up in all countries of the world, and while it has indeed slowed the processes which Henry George described, it has led to exactly the problem he predicted. "For instance, to take one of the simplest and mildest of the class of measures...--a graduated tax on incomes. The object at which it aims is good; but this means involves the employment of a large number of officials clothed with inquisitorial powers; temptations to bribery, and perjury, and all other means of evasion, which beget a demoralization of opinion, and ptu a premium upon unscrupulousness and a tax upon conscience..." That seems to be a pretty good descrition of civic life today.

When I have mentioned Henry George, the usual answer has been "Who?" Those who had heard of him mostly thought that his ideas only applied to agrarian societies. In fact, he recognized that land was only one (though the most fundamental) form of monopoly, and he makes it clear that he included all monopolies, not just land, into the realm of the rights of the community rather than a private owner. In this day, he would certainly hhave comments about how the airwaves have been distributed, for example.

The main surprise to me about this book is how completely unknown it has become. Anyone who reads this with an open mind will be convinced by Henry George's arguments.

I won't go into too much detail - the other reviewers have said it so eloquently and accurately. I believe this is one of the best books ever written and ranks up there with Shakespeare, the bible and Mozart in the sense that it is almost perfect in both artistic and literary form, yet it is a book aimed at solving the economic woes faced by modern civiliasations. For anyone under the opinion that political economy is the dismal science, no doubt in part due to cynics such as Maynard Keynes, Marx etc., and the modern econimc rationalist outlook, this book will be enlightening and uplifting. if you read this book it will change your life.

Reviewing classics is always an iffy proposition. I've certainly learned more about the land tax from other sources than from this book. The book also can't give you any idea of how his ideas are being applied today, and the fact that modern Georgists talk about taxing pollution and other "economic bads", in a natural outgrowth from George's ideas. Similarly, reading John Locke won't give you an idea of what the United States government is like. Still it's worth reading for seeing where the ideas come from. And on that basis, this is a great book.

Although the point of this book is the ideas, George's florid prose and tendency to offer a dozen analogies to drive home each point make currently available abridgements of Progress and Poverty a reasonable alternative.

That devastating cycles of boom and bust continue to bedevil the economies of the world at the end of the second millennium--more than 100 years after Henry George explained their cause and cure in this book--acts as testament to the distorting influence of power and privilege in the body politic. As George puts it in the closing pages: "Beauty still lies imprisoned and iron wheels go over the good and true and beautiful that might spring from human lives." Humanity's real hope lies in our acceptance of the truths so articulately espoused throughout the pages of Progress & Poverty.

George writes convincingly about the need to remove the landlord from the equation when dealing with industrial ownership and taxation. He argues that the private ownership of land should be the sole source of government revenue, releasing trade from the shackles of corporate taxation, individuals from income and other indirect taxes and shifting the burden to the landed classes. It seems a justifiable premise to charge landlords for the land they occupy as inevitably land values rise only as a consequence of society as a whole and not due to anything the landlord contributes. Businesses pay ever increasing rents to a landlord who cares little whether that business is profitable or not. George proposes a single land tax but fails to answer the socialist question about industrial democracy and worker's particpation and control.

While I have minor quibbles with a few topics, overall the book clearly and preciently explains a powerful analysis of industrial society, with an elegant remedy. Both mindful of the wisdom of markets and the unfairness of typical industrial cities, George first details the analysis, then passionately advocates for his thoughtful 'cure'.

I quibble a bit with the postulated benefits of increased population on the quality of life, which seems to conflate the effects of better technology with simple increases in population at one point. This part of his two-pronged poke at Malthusianism seems off.

This is more than made up for by the intriguing discernment that perhaps capital and labor are united in their susceptibility to the landed, and share a common interest, instead of being set against each other.

Overall, a very important and well-written book.

The book is fantastic, but it's a bit of a rip-off to pay $4.95 for a kindle edition that hasn't even been edited. A search for Progress and Poverty would quickly reveal free html and epub editions of this book that you could convert to kindle format, giving you the same typos that are in this paid kindle edition. Just from the kindle sample you can see "6100,000" when it should be "$100,000." In addition to html and epub formats, the Online Library of Liberty has both scanned and OCR'd text PDFs of the book. I would avoid this kindle edition and get one of the free editions elsewhere.

People do not argue with the teaching of George, they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.