Henry George
American political economist (1839 to 1897); author of Progress and Poverty.
Henry George did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
What they believe
-
Material progress tends not to improve the lot of the poorest class, but to depress it further
I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in nowise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is still further to depress the condition of the lowest class.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1877–1880This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 20 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Material progress tends not to improve the lot of the poorest class, but to depress it further
I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in nowise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is still further to depress the condition of the lowest class.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Progress whose added wealth only builds great fortunes is not real and cannot last
So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Wages are produced by the labor they pay for and should rise with the number of laborers, other things equal
This examination shows that the current doctrine of wages is founded upon a misconception; that, in truth, wages are produced by the labor for which they are paid, and should, other things being equal, increase with the number of laborers.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Show 17 more
Want blamed on overpopulation is really caused by war, tyranny and oppression
What I say is this: that nowhere is there any instance which will support this theory; that nowhere can want be properly attributed to the pressure of population against the power to procure subsistence in the then existing degree of human knowledge; that everywhere the vice and misery attributed to over-population can be traced to the warfare, tyranny, and oppression which prevent knowledge from being utilized and deny the security essential to production.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Population growth has so far raised, not reduced, average production of wealth
And hence, increase of population, so far as it has yet anywhere gone, does not mean a reduction, but an increase in the average production of wealth.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Rent is a monopoly price for owning natural elements that labor cannot produce or increase
Rent, in short, is the price of monopoly, arising from the reduction to individual ownership of natural elements which human exertion can neither produce nor increase.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Interest is natural rather than a product of social arrangements, and therefore just
It is not an arbitrary, but a natural thing; it is not the result of a particular social organization, but of laws of the universe which underlie society. It is, therefore, just.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Rising land values always come at the expense of what labor earns
In short, the value of land depending wholly upon the power which its ownership gives of appropriating wealth created by labor, the increase of land values is always at the expense of the value of labor. And, hence, that the increase of productive power does not increase wages, is because it does increase the value of land.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Unequal land ownership is the great cause of unequal distribution of wealth
The great cause of inequality in the distribution of wealth is inequality in the ownership of land. The ownership of land is the great fundamental fact which ultimately determines the social, the political, and consequently the intellectual and moral condition of a people.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Ending poverty requires replacing individual ownership of land with common ownership
To extirpate poverty, to make wages what justice commands they should be, the full earnings of the laborer, we must therefore substitute for the individual ownership of land a common ownership. Nothing else will go to the cause of the evil—in nothing else is there the slightest hope.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Everyone has an equal right to use land, as clear as the right to breathe air
The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Private property in land is a grave wrong comparable to chattel slavery
The truth is, and from this truth there can be no escape, that there is and can be no just title to an exclusive possession of the soil, and that private property in land is a bold, bare, enormous wrong, like that of chattel slavery.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Society need not confiscate land, only the rent it yields
We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
All taxation except a tax on land values should be abolished
Now, insomuch as the taxation of rent, or land values, must necessarily be increased just as we abolish other taxes, we may put the proposition into practical form by proposing— To abolish all taxation save that upon land values.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
A tax on land values is the most just and equal of all taxes
The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Current taxation obstructs trade and penalizes energy, industry, skill and thrift
The present method of taxation operates upon exchange like artificial deserts and mountains; it costs more to get goods through a custom house than it does to carry them around the world. It operates upon energy, and industry, and skill, and thrift, like a fine upon those qualities.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Differences between people owe far more to upbringing than to heredity
The influence of heredity, which it is now the fashion to rate so highly, is as nothing compared with the influences which mold the man after he comes into the world.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Human progress depends on association combined with equality
Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Association frees mental power for expenditure in improvement, and equality, or justice, or freedom—for the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law—prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Every past civilization was destroyed by growing inequality of wealth and power, and ours shows the same trend
What has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power. This same tendency, operating with increasing force, is observable in our civilization to-day, showing itself in every progressive community, and with greater intensity the more progressive the community.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
Without an equal right to land, political liberty becomes the liberty to compete for starvation wages
Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, as population increases and invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages.
Progress and Poverty (1879; Memorial Edition) Said c. 1877–1880
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.