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- Originally taken from Wikipedia entry on Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty was written by Henry George in 1879. The book is a treatise on the cyclical nature of an industrial economy and its remedies.
Context[]
The book basically seeks to explain why poverty is virtually unknown in primitive societies but widespread wherever there is great wealth.
George saw how technological and social advances (including education and public services) increased the value of land (natural resources, urban locations, etc) and, thus, the amount of wealth that can be demanded by the owners of land from those who need the use of land. In other words: the better the public services, the higher the rent is (as more people value that land).The tendency of speculators to increase the price of land faster than wealth can be produced to pay has the result of lowering the amount of wealth left over for labor to claim in wages, and finally leads to the collapse of enterprises at the margin, with a ripple effect that becomes a serious business depression entailing widespread unemployment, foreclosures, etc.
In Progress and Poverty, George examines various proposed strategies to prevent business depressions, unemployment and poverty, but finds them unsatisfactory. As an alternative he proposes his own solution: a single tax on land values. This would be a tax on the annual value of land held as private property. It would be high enough to allow for all other taxes -- especially upon labor and production -- to be abolished. George argued that a land value tax would give landowners an incentive to use the land in a productive way, thereby employing labor and creating wealth, or to sell the land at affordable prices to those who would themselves use the land in a productive way. This shift in the bargaining balance between resource owners and laborers would raise the general level of wages and ensure no one need suffer involuntary poverty.
Soon after its publication, over three million copies of Progress and Poverty were bought.
Links to Online Version[]
- Links to an online version of Progress and Poverty, (plus supplements), provided by The Henry George Institute at the henrygeorge.org website
Prefaces[]
- Publisher’s Foreword by Cliff Cobb
- Editor’s Preface by Bob Drake
- Author’s Preface to the Fourth Edition
Introduction: The Problem of Poverty Amid Progress[]
First Part: Wages and Capital[]
- 1. Why Traditional Theories of Wages are Wrong
- 2. Defining Terms
- 3. Wages Are Produced By Labor, Not Drawn From Capital
- 4. Workers Not Supported By Capital
- 5. The True Functions of Capital
- Supplements:
Second Part: Population and Subsistence[]
- 6. The Theory of Population According to Malthus
- 7. Malthus vs. Facts
- 8. Malthus vs. Analogies
- 9. Malthusian Theory Disproved
- Supplements:
Third Part: The Laws of Distribution[]
- 10. Necessary Relation of the Laws of Distribution
- 11. The Law Of Rent
- 12. The Cause of Interest
- 13. False Interest
- 14. The Law Of Interest
- 15. The Law Of Wages
- 16. Correlating The Laws of Distribution
- 17. The Problem Explained
Fourth Part: The Effect of Material Progress on the Distribution of Wealth[]
- 18. Dynamic Forces Not Yet Explored
- 19. Population Growth and Distribution of Wealth
- 20. Technology and the Distribution of Wealth
- 21. Speculation
- Supplement
Fifth Part: The Problem Solved[]
- Supplements
Sixth Part: The Remedy[]
Seventh Part: Justice of the Remedy[]
- 26. The Injustice of Private Property In Land
- 27. The Enslavement of Labor
- 28. Are Landowners Entitled to Compensation?
- 29. History of Land as Private Property
- 30. History of Property in Land in the US
- Supplement
Eighth Part: Application of the Remedy[]
- 31. Private Property in Land is Inconsistent with the Best Use of Land
- 32. Securing Equal Rights To Land
- 33. The Canons of Taxation
- 34. Endorsements And Objections
- Supplements
Ninth Part: Effects of the Remedy[]
- 35. The Effect on Production
- 36. The Effect on The Distribution of Wealth
- 37. The Effect on Individuals and Classes
- 38. Changes in Society
- Supplements
Tenth Part: The Law of Human Progress[]
- 39. The Cause of Human Progress
- 40. Differences in Civilizations
- 41. The Law of Human Progress
- 42. How Modern Civilization May Decline
- 43. The Central Truth
- 44. Conclusion: The Individual Life
Afterword: Who Was Henry George?[]
- by Agnes George deMille