Henry George
Encyclopedia
Henry George was an American writer
, politician
and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax
, also known as the "single tax
" on land
. He inspired the economic philosophy
known as Georgism
, whose main tenet is that people should own what they create, but that everything found in nature
, most importantly land
, belongs equally to all humanity. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty
(1879), is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature
of industrial economies, and the use of the land value tax as a possible remedy.
, to a lower-middle class family, the second of ten children of Richard S. H. George and Catharine Pratt (Vallance) George. His formal education ended at age 14 and he went to sea as a foremast boy at age 15 in April 1855 on the Hindoo, bound for Melbourne
and Calcutta
. He returned to Philadelphia after 14 months at sea to become an apprentice typesetter before settling in California
. After a failed attempt at gold mining
he began work with the newspaper
industry during 1865, starting as a printer, continuing as a journalist, and ending as an editor and proprietor. He worked for several papers, including four years (1871–1875) as editor of his own newspaper San Francisco Daily Evening Post.
In California, George became enamored of Annie Corsina Fox, an eighteen-year-old Australia
n girl who had been orphaned and was living with an uncle. The uncle, a prosperous, strong-minded man, was opposed to his niece's impoverished suitor. But the couple, defying him, eloped and married during late 1861, with Henry dressed in a borrowed suit and Annie bringing only a packet of books. The marriage was a happy one and four children were born to them. Fox's mother was Irish Catholic
, and while George remained an Evangelical Protestant
, the children were raised Catholic
. On November 3, 1862 Annie gave birth to future United States Representative from New York
, Henry George, Jr.
(1862–1916). Early on, even with the birth of future sculptor, Richard F. George (1865–September 28, 1912), the family was near starvation, but George's increasing reputation and involvement in the newspaper industry lifted them from poverty.
George's other two children were both daughters. The first was Jennie George, (c. 1867 - 1897), later to become Jennie George Atkinson. George's other daughter was Anna Angela George, (b. 1879), who would become mother of both future dancer and choreographer, Agnes de Mille
and future actress Peggy George, (who was born Margaret George de Mille).
Republican
, but then became a Democrat
, once losing an election to the California State Assembly
. He was a strong critic of railroad and mining interests, corrupt politicians, land speculators, and labor contractors.
One day during 1871 George went for a horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking San Francisco Bay
. He later wrote of the revelation that he had:
Furthermore, on a visit to New York City
, he was struck by the apparent paradox that the poor in that long-established city were much worse off than the poor in less developed California. These observations supplied the theme and title for his 1879 book Progress and Poverty
, which was a great success, selling over 3 million copies. In it George made the argument that a sizeable portion of the wealth created by social and technological advances in a free market
economy is possessed by land owners and monopolists
via economic rent
s, and that this concentration of unearned wealth is the main cause of poverty
. George considered it a great injustice that private profit was being earned from restricting access to natural resources while productive activity was burdened with heavy taxes, and indicated that such a system was equivalent to slavery
—a concept somewhat similar to wage slavery
.
George was in a position to discover this pattern, having experienced poverty himself, knowing many different societies from his travels, and living in California at a time of rapid growth. In particular he had noticed that the construction of railroads in California was increasing land values and rents as fast or faster than wages were rising.
During 1880, now a popular writer and speaker, George moved to New York City
, becoming closely allied with the Irish nationalist
community despite being of English ancestry. From there he made several speaking journeys abroad to places such as Ireland
and Scotland
where access to land was (and still is) a major political issue. During 1886 George campaigned for mayor of New York City as the candidate of the United Labor Party, the short-lived political society of the Central Labor Union
. He polled second, more than the Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt
. The election was won by Tammany Hall
candidate Abram Stevens Hewitt
by what many of George's supporters believed was fraud. In the 1887 New York state elections
George came in a distant third in the election for Secretary of State of New York
. The United Labor Party was soon weakened by internal divisions: the management was essentially Georgist, but as a party of organized labor it also included some Marxist members who did not want to distinguish between land and capital
, many Catholic
members who were discouraged by the excommunication of Father Edward McGlynn
, and many who disagreed with George's free trade policy. Against the advice of his doctors, George campaigned for mayor again during 1897, this time as an Independent Democrat.
four days before the election. An estimated 100,000 people attended his funeral
on Sunday, October 30, 1897 where the Reverend Lyman Abbott
delivered an address, "Henry George: A Remembrance".
of land should be shared by society rather than being owned privately.
The clearest statement of this view is found in Progress and Poverty
: "We must make land common property." By taxing land values, society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity.
Modern-day environmentalists
have agreed with the idea of the earth as the common property of humanity – and some have endorsed the idea of ecological tax reform, including substantial taxes or fees on pollution
as a replacement for "command and control" regulation.
was read into the Congressional Record
by five Democratic congressmen.
Although he thought that there might be some situations in which immigration restriction would no longer be necessary and admitted his first analysis of the issue of immigration was "crude", he defended many of these statements for the rest of his life.
In particular he argued that immigrants accepting lower wages had the undesirable effect of forcing down wages generally. He acknowledged, however, that wages could only be driven down as low as whatever alternative for self-employment
was available.
in the U.S.A.
rather than gold or silver currency or money backed by bank credit.
during 1909, the Liberal Government of the day attempted to implement his ideas as part of the People's Budget
. This caused a crisis which resulted indirectly in reform of the House of Lords
. George's ideas were also adopted to some degree in Australia
, Singapore
, South Africa
, South Korea
, and Taiwan
. In these countries, governments still levy some type of land value tax
, albeit with exemptions.
In Denmark, the Danmarks Retsforbund
(known in English as the Justice Party or Single-Tax Party) was founded in 1919. The party's platform is based upon the land tax principles of Henry George. The party was elected to parliament for the first time in 1926, and they were moderately successful in the post-war period and managed to join a governing coalition with the Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party from the years 1957-60. In 1960 they dropped out of the parliament. However in the 1973 Danish parliamentary election (the so-called Landslide Election) the party won 5 seats in Folketinget, because of their opposition against Danish membership of the European Economic Community. They were represented until 1981 and also in the European Parliament 1978-79 (by Ib Christensen). The 1970s were followed by a dropoff of party support, and the party ceased to run at a national level in 1990, but in 2005 the party ran together with Minoritetspartiet (the Minority Party): this wasn't with any success since the Minority Party only achieved 0.3% of the votes.
Fairhope, Alabama
was founded as a colony by a group of his followers as an experiment to try to test his concepts. Much of he land around Fairhope is owned by the |Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, which leases the land for 99 years (transferable and renewable for another 99 years at transfer).
Although both advocated worker's rights, Henry George and Karl Marx
were antagonists. Marx saw the Single Tax platform as a step backwards from the transition to communism
.
On his part, Henry George predicted that if Marx's ideas were tried the likely result would be a dictatorship.
Henry George's popularity decreased gradually during the 20th century, and he is little known today. However, there are still many Georgist
organizations in existence. Many people who still remain famous were influenced by him. For example, George Bernard Shaw
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1990.tb02266.x?journalCode=ajes, Leo Tolstoy's
To The Working People http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/tolstoy_preface_to_hgeorge_social_problems.html , Sun Yat Sen http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/trescott-paul_henrygeorge-and-sun-yat-sen.html, Herbert Simon
http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1978/simon-autobio.html, and David Lloyd George
. A follower of George, Lizzie Magie, created a board game called The Landlord's Game
in 1904 to demonstrate his theories. After further development this game led to the modern board game Monopoly
. http://www.adena.com/adena/mo/mo05.htm
J. Frank Colbert
, a newspaper
man, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
and later the mayor
of Minden
, joined the Georgist movement during 1927. During 1932, Colbert addressed the Henry George Congress at Memphis
, Tennessee
.
Also notable is Silvio Gesell
's Freiwirtschaft
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/newland-terry_on-silvio-gesell.html, in which Gesell combined Henry George's ideas about land ownership and rents with his own theory about the money system and interest rates and his successive development of Freigeld
.
In his last book, Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?
, Martin Luther King, Jr referenced Henry George in support of a guaranteed minimum income
.http://www.progress.org/dividend/cdking.html George's influence has ranged widely across the political spectrum
. Noted progressives such as consumer rights advocate
(and U.S. Presidential candidate) Ralph Nader
http://web.archive.org/web/20040828085138/http://www.votenader.org/issues/index.php?cid=7 and Congressman Dennis Kucinich
http://www.monetary.org have spoken positively about George in campaign platforms
and speeches. His ideas have also received praise from conservative
journalists William F. Buckley, Jr.
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Buckley_HDH.htm and Frank Chodorov
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/chodorov-frank_on-natural-law.html, Fred E. Foldvary
http://www.progress.org/fold47.htm and Stephen Moore http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm. The libertarian
political and social commentator Albert Jay Nock
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Nock_HGUA.htm was also an avowed admirer, and wrote extensively on the Georgist economic and social philosophy
.
Mason Gaffney
, an American economist
and a major Georgist critic of neoclassical economics
, argued that neoclassical economics was designed and promoted by landowners and their hired economists to divert attention from George's extremely popular philosophy that since land and resources are provided by nature, and their value is given by society, they - rather than labor or capital - should provide the tax base to fund government and its expenditures.
The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation http://schalkenbach.org/, an incorporated "operating foundation," also publishes copies of George's work on economic reform and sponsors academic research into his policy proposals http://schalkenbach.org/what-we-do.html.
in order to explain the nature of interest
and profit
. Bastiat had asked his readers to consider James and William, both carpenters. James has built himself a plane, and has lent it to William for a year. Would James be satisfied with the return of an equally good plane a year later? Surely not! He'd expect a board along with it, as interest. The basic idea of a theory of interest is to understand why. Bastiat said that James had given William over that year "the power, inherent in the instrument, to increase the productivity of his labor," and wants compensation for that increased productivity.
George did not accept this explanation. He wrote, "I am inclined to think that if all wealth
consisted of such things as planes, and all production was such as that of carpenters -- that is to say, if wealth consisted but of the inert matter of the universe, and production of working up this inert matter into different shapes, that interest would be but the robbery of industry, and could not long exist." But some wealth is inherently fruitful, like a pair of breeding cattle, or a vat of grape juice soon to ferment into wine. Planes and other sorts of inert matter (and the most lent item of all—- money itself) earn interest indirectly, by being part of the same "circle of exchange" with fruitful forms of wealth such as those, so that tying up these forms of wealth over time incurs an opportunity cost
.
George's theory had its share of critiques. Austrian school
economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
, for example, expressed a negative judgment of George's discussion of the carpenter's plane. On page 339 of his treatise, Capital and Interest, he wrote:
Later, George argued that the role of time in production is pervasive. In "The Science of Political Economy", he writes:
According to Oscar B. Johannsen, "Since the very basis of the Austrian concept of value is subjective, it is apparent that George's understanding of value paralleled theirs. However, he either did not understand or did not appreciate the importance of marginal utility
."
Another spirited response came from British biologist T.H. Huxley in his article "Capital - the Mother of Labour," published in 1890 in the journal The Nineteenth Century. Huxley used the principles of energy science to undermine George's theory, arguing that, energetically speaking, labor is unproductive.
George's early emphasis on the "productive forces of nature" is now dismissed even by otherwise Georgist authors.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax
Land value tax
A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
, also known as the "single tax
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
" on land
Land (economics)
In economics, land comprises all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed. Examples are any and all particular geographical locations, mineral deposits, and even geostationary orbit locations and portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Natural resources are fundamental to...
. He inspired the economic philosophy
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
known as Georgism
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
, whose main tenet is that people should own what they create, but that everything found in nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, most importantly land
Land (economics)
In economics, land comprises all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed. Examples are any and all particular geographical locations, mineral deposits, and even geostationary orbit locations and portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Natural resources are fundamental to...
, belongs equally to all humanity. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy was written by Henry George in 1879...
(1879), is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature
Business cycle
The term business cycle refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production or economic activity over several months or years...
of industrial economies, and the use of the land value tax as a possible remedy.
Early life and marriage
George was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, to a lower-middle class family, the second of ten children of Richard S. H. George and Catharine Pratt (Vallance) George. His formal education ended at age 14 and he went to sea as a foremast boy at age 15 in April 1855 on the Hindoo, bound for Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
. He returned to Philadelphia after 14 months at sea to become an apprentice typesetter before settling in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. After a failed attempt at gold mining
Placer mining
Placer mining is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment....
he began work with the newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
industry during 1865, starting as a printer, continuing as a journalist, and ending as an editor and proprietor. He worked for several papers, including four years (1871–1875) as editor of his own newspaper San Francisco Daily Evening Post.
In California, George became enamored of Annie Corsina Fox, an eighteen-year-old Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n girl who had been orphaned and was living with an uncle. The uncle, a prosperous, strong-minded man, was opposed to his niece's impoverished suitor. But the couple, defying him, eloped and married during late 1861, with Henry dressed in a borrowed suit and Annie bringing only a packet of books. The marriage was a happy one and four children were born to them. Fox's mother was Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
, and while George remained an Evangelical Protestant
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
, the children were raised Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. On November 3, 1862 Annie gave birth to future United States Representative from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Henry George, Jr.
Henry George, Jr.
Henry George, Jr. was a United States Representative from New York and son of American political economist Henry George .-Biography:...
(1862–1916). Early on, even with the birth of future sculptor, Richard F. George (1865–September 28, 1912), the family was near starvation, but George's increasing reputation and involvement in the newspaper industry lifted them from poverty.
George's other two children were both daughters. The first was Jennie George, (c. 1867 - 1897), later to become Jennie George Atkinson. George's other daughter was Anna Angela George, (b. 1879), who would become mother of both future dancer and choreographer, Agnes de Mille
Agnes de Mille
Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.-Early years:Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMille and her uncle Cecil B. DeMille were both Hollywood directors...
and future actress Peggy George, (who was born Margaret George de Mille).
Economic and political philosophy
George began as a LincolnAbraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, but then became a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, once losing an election to the California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...
. He was a strong critic of railroad and mining interests, corrupt politicians, land speculators, and labor contractors.
One day during 1871 George went for a horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. He later wrote of the revelation that he had:
Furthermore, on a visit to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, he was struck by the apparent paradox that the poor in that long-established city were much worse off than the poor in less developed California. These observations supplied the theme and title for his 1879 book Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy was written by Henry George in 1879...
, which was a great success, selling over 3 million copies. In it George made the argument that a sizeable portion of the wealth created by social and technological advances in a free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
economy is possessed by land owners and monopolists
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
via economic rent
Economic rent
Economic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
s, and that this concentration of unearned wealth is the main cause of poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
. George considered it a great injustice that private profit was being earned from restricting access to natural resources while productive activity was burdened with heavy taxes, and indicated that such a system was equivalent to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
—a concept somewhat similar to wage slavery
Wage slavery
Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate. It is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor, and to highlight similarities between owning and employing a person...
.
George was in a position to discover this pattern, having experienced poverty himself, knowing many different societies from his travels, and living in California at a time of rapid growth. In particular he had noticed that the construction of railroads in California was increasing land values and rents as fast or faster than wages were rising.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, becoming closely allied with the Irish nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
community despite being of English ancestry. From there he made several speaking journeys abroad to places such as Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
where access to land was (and still is) a major political issue. During 1886 George campaigned for mayor of New York City as the candidate of the United Labor Party, the short-lived political society of the Central Labor Union
Central Labor Union
The Central Labor Union of New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey was an early trade union organization that later broke up into various locals, which are now AFL-CIO members...
. He polled second, more than the Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
. The election was won by Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
candidate Abram Stevens Hewitt
Abram Stevens Hewitt
Abram Stevens Hewitt was a teacher, lawyer, an iron manufacturer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877, U.S. Congressman, and a mayor of New York. He was the son-in-law of Peter Cooper , an industrialist, inventor and philanthropist...
by what many of George's supporters believed was fraud. In the 1887 New York state elections
New York state election, 1887
The 1887 New York state election was held on November 8, 1887, to elect the Secretary of State, the State Comptroller, the Attorney General, the State Treasurer and the State Engineer, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate.-History:The United Labor...
George came in a distant third in the election for Secretary of State of New York
Secretary of State of New York
The Secretary of State of New York is a cabinet officer in the government of the U.S. state of New York.The current Secretary of State of New York is Cesar A...
. The United Labor Party was soon weakened by internal divisions: the management was essentially Georgist, but as a party of organized labor it also included some Marxist members who did not want to distinguish between land and capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
, many Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
members who were discouraged by the excommunication of Father Edward McGlynn
Edward McGlynn
Father Edward McGlynn , American Roman Catholic priest and social reformer, was born in New York City of Irish parents, Peter and Sarah McGlynn. His parents had immigrated in 1824, and his father became a contractor, acquiring a small fortune before dying in 1847, leaving a widow and ten children...
, and many who disagreed with George's free trade policy. Against the advice of his doctors, George campaigned for mayor again during 1897, this time as an Independent Democrat.
Death
Henry George died of a strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
four days before the election. An estimated 100,000 people attended his funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
on Sunday, October 30, 1897 where the Reverend Lyman Abbott
Lyman Abbott
Lyman Abbott was an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author.-Early years:Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Massachusetts on December 18, 1835, the son of the prolific author, educator and historian Jacob Abbott...
delivered an address, "Henry George: A Remembrance".
Single tax on land
Henry George is best known for his argument that the economic rentEconomic rent
Economic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
of land should be shared by society rather than being owned privately.
The clearest statement of this view is found in Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy was written by Henry George in 1879...
: "We must make land common property." By taxing land values, society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity.
Modern-day environmentalists
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
have agreed with the idea of the earth as the common property of humanity – and some have endorsed the idea of ecological tax reform, including substantial taxes or fees on pollution
Pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...
as a replacement for "command and control" regulation.
Free trade
George was opposed to tariffs, which were at the time both the major method of protectionist trade policy and an important source of federal revenue (the federal income tax having not yet been introduced). Later in his life, free trade became a major issue in federal politics and his book Protection or Free TradeProtection or Free Trade
Protection or Free Trade: An Examination of the Tariff Question with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor was a book written by 19th century economist and social philosopher, Henry George ....
was read into the Congressional Record
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
by five Democratic congressmen.
Chinese immigration
Some of George's earliest articles to gain him fame were on his opinion that Chinese immigration should be restricted.Although he thought that there might be some situations in which immigration restriction would no longer be necessary and admitted his first analysis of the issue of immigration was "crude", he defended many of these statements for the rest of his life.
In particular he argued that immigrants accepting lower wages had the undesirable effect of forcing down wages generally. He acknowledged, however, that wages could only be driven down as low as whatever alternative for self-employment
Self-employment
Self-employment is working for one's self.Self-employed people can also be referred to as a person who works for himself/herself instead of an employer, but drawing income from a trade or business that they operate personally....
was available.
Secret ballots
George was one of the earliest, strongest and most prominent advocates for adoption of the Secret BallotSecret ballot
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
in the U.S.A.
Hard currency and national debt
George supported government issued notes such as the greenbackUnited States Note
A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U.S. Having been current for over 100 years, they were issued for longer than any other form of U.S. paper money. They were known popularly as "greenbacks" in their heyday, a...
rather than gold or silver currency or money backed by bank credit.
Subsequent influence
In the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
during 1909, the Liberal Government of the day attempted to implement his ideas as part of the People's Budget
People's Budget
The 1909 People's Budget was a product of then British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, introducing many unprecedented taxes on the wealthy and radical social welfare programmes to Britain's political life...
. This caused a crisis which resulted indirectly in reform of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. George's ideas were also adopted to some degree in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, and Taiwan
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
. In these countries, governments still levy some type of land value tax
Land value tax
A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
, albeit with exemptions.
In Denmark, the Danmarks Retsforbund
Justice Party of Denmark
Danmarks Retsforbund was founded in 1919. The party's platform is based upon the principles of U.S. economist Henry George who advocated a single tax on all land...
(known in English as the Justice Party or Single-Tax Party) was founded in 1919. The party's platform is based upon the land tax principles of Henry George. The party was elected to parliament for the first time in 1926, and they were moderately successful in the post-war period and managed to join a governing coalition with the Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party from the years 1957-60. In 1960 they dropped out of the parliament. However in the 1973 Danish parliamentary election (the so-called Landslide Election) the party won 5 seats in Folketinget, because of their opposition against Danish membership of the European Economic Community. They were represented until 1981 and also in the European Parliament 1978-79 (by Ib Christensen). The 1970s were followed by a dropoff of party support, and the party ceased to run at a national level in 1990, but in 2005 the party ran together with Minoritetspartiet (the Minority Party): this wasn't with any success since the Minority Party only achieved 0.3% of the votes.
Fairhope, Alabama
Fairhope, Alabama
Fairhope is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, on a sloping plateau, along the cliffs and shoreline of Mobile Bay. The 2010 census lists the population of the city as 16,176....
was founded as a colony by a group of his followers as an experiment to try to test his concepts. Much of he land around Fairhope is owned by the |Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, which leases the land for 99 years (transferable and renewable for another 99 years at transfer).
Although both advocated worker's rights, Henry George and Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
were antagonists. Marx saw the Single Tax platform as a step backwards from the transition to communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
On his part, Henry George predicted that if Marx's ideas were tried the likely result would be a dictatorship.
Henry George's popularity decreased gradually during the 20th century, and he is little known today. However, there are still many Georgist
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
organizations in existence. Many people who still remain famous were influenced by him. For example, George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1990.tb02266.x?journalCode=ajes, Leo Tolstoy's
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
To The Working People http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/tolstoy_preface_to_hgeorge_social_problems.html , Sun Yat Sen http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/trescott-paul_henrygeorge-and-sun-yat-sen.html, Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1978/simon-autobio.html, and David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. A follower of George, Lizzie Magie, created a board game called The Landlord's Game
The Landlord's Game
The Landlord's Game is a board game patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie as . It is a realty and taxation game, which is considered to be a direct inspiration for the board game Monopoly...
in 1904 to demonstrate his theories. After further development this game led to the modern board game Monopoly
Monopoly (game)
Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...
. http://www.adena.com/adena/mo/mo05.htm
J. Frank Colbert
J. Frank Colbert
Jefferson Franklin Colbert, known as J. Frank Colbert , was a Democratic politician who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1920–1925 and from 1944-1946 as the mayor of the small city of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.-Background:Colbert was born in...
, a newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
man, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
and later the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Minden
Minden, Louisiana
Minden is a city in the American state of Louisiana. It serves as the parish seat of Webster Parish and is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census...
, joined the Georgist movement during 1927. During 1932, Colbert addressed the Henry George Congress at Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
.
Also notable is Silvio Gesell
Silvio Gesell
Silvio Gesell was a German merchant, theoretical economist, social activist, anarchist and founder of Freiwirtschaft.-Life:...
's Freiwirtschaft
Freiwirtschaft
is an economic idea founded by Silvio Gesell in 1916. He called it . In 1932, a group of Swiss businessmen used his ideas to found WIR....
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/newland-terry_on-silvio-gesell.html, in which Gesell combined Henry George's ideas about land ownership and rents with his own theory about the money system and interest rates and his successive development of Freigeld
Freigeld
In the theory of Freiwirtschaft, Freigeld is a monetary unit proposed by Silvio Gesell.- Properties :Freigeld has several special properties:...
.
In his last book, Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is a 1967 book by African-American minister, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and social justice campaigner Martin Luther King, Jr. It was King's fourth and last book before his assassination. He spent a long period in isolation, living in a rented residence...
, Martin Luther King, Jr referenced Henry George in support of a guaranteed minimum income
Guaranteed minimum income
Guaranteed minimum income is a system of social welfare provision that guarantees that all citizens or families have an income sufficient to live on, provided they meet certain conditions. Eligibility is typically determined by citizenship, a means test and either availability for the labour...
.http://www.progress.org/dividend/cdking.html George's influence has ranged widely across the political spectrum
Political spectrum
A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions....
. Noted progressives such as consumer rights advocate
Consumer protection
Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...
(and U.S. Presidential candidate) Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
http://web.archive.org/web/20040828085138/http://www.votenader.org/issues/index.php?cid=7 and Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
http://www.monetary.org have spoken positively about George in campaign platforms
Party platform
A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...
and speeches. His ideas have also received praise from conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...
journalists William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Buckley_HDH.htm and Frank Chodorov
Frank Chodorov
Frank Chodorov was an American member of the Old Right, a group of libertarian thinkers who were non-interventionist in foreign policy and anti–New Deal...
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/chodorov-frank_on-natural-law.html, Fred E. Foldvary
Fred E. Foldvary
Fred Emanuel Foldvary is a lecturer in economics at Santa Clara University, California, and a research fellow at The Independent Institute...
http://www.progress.org/fold47.htm and Stephen Moore http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm. The libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political and social commentator Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock was an influential United States libertarian author, educational theorist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century.- Life and work :...
http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Nock_HGUA.htm was also an avowed admirer, and wrote extensively on the Georgist economic and social philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
.
Mason Gaffney
Mason Gaffney
Mason Gaffney is an American economist and a major critic of Neoclassical economics from a Georgist point of view. He earned his B.A. in 1948 from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Gaffney first read Henry George's masterwork Progress and Poverty as a high school junior...
, an American economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
and a major Georgist critic of neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits...
, argued that neoclassical economics was designed and promoted by landowners and their hired economists to divert attention from George's extremely popular philosophy that since land and resources are provided by nature, and their value is given by society, they - rather than labor or capital - should provide the tax base to fund government and its expenditures.
The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation http://schalkenbach.org/, an incorporated "operating foundation," also publishes copies of George's work on economic reform and sponsors academic research into his policy proposals http://schalkenbach.org/what-we-do.html.
Economic contributions
George developed what he saw as a crucial feature of his own theory of economics in a critique of an illustration used by Frédéric BastiatFrédéric Bastiat
Claude Frédéric Bastiat was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly. He was notable for developing the important economic concept of opportunity cost.-Biography:...
in order to explain the nature of interest
Interest
Interest is a fee paid by a borrower of assets to the owner as a form of compensation for the use of the assets. It is most commonly the price paid for the use of borrowed money, or money earned by deposited funds....
and profit
Profit (economics)
In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total opportunity costs of a venture to an entrepreneur or investor, whilst economic profit In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total...
. Bastiat had asked his readers to consider James and William, both carpenters. James has built himself a plane, and has lent it to William for a year. Would James be satisfied with the return of an equally good plane a year later? Surely not! He'd expect a board along with it, as interest. The basic idea of a theory of interest is to understand why. Bastiat said that James had given William over that year "the power, inherent in the instrument, to increase the productivity of his labor," and wants compensation for that increased productivity.
George did not accept this explanation. He wrote, "I am inclined to think that if all wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
consisted of such things as planes, and all production was such as that of carpenters -- that is to say, if wealth consisted but of the inert matter of the universe, and production of working up this inert matter into different shapes, that interest would be but the robbery of industry, and could not long exist." But some wealth is inherently fruitful, like a pair of breeding cattle, or a vat of grape juice soon to ferment into wine. Planes and other sorts of inert matter (and the most lent item of all—- money itself) earn interest indirectly, by being part of the same "circle of exchange" with fruitful forms of wealth such as those, so that tying up these forms of wealth over time incurs an opportunity cost
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the best alternative that is not chosen . It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. The opportunity cost is also the...
.
George's theory had its share of critiques. Austrian school
Austrian School
The Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk was an Austrian economist who made important contributions to the development of the Austrian School of economics.-Biography:...
, for example, expressed a negative judgment of George's discussion of the carpenter's plane. On page 339 of his treatise, Capital and Interest, he wrote:
Later, George argued that the role of time in production is pervasive. In "The Science of Political Economy", he writes:
According to Oscar B. Johannsen, "Since the very basis of the Austrian concept of value is subjective, it is apparent that George's understanding of value paralleled theirs. However, he either did not understand or did not appreciate the importance of marginal utility
Marginal utility
In economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained from an increase in the consumption of that good or service...
."
Another spirited response came from British biologist T.H. Huxley in his article "Capital - the Mother of Labour," published in 1890 in the journal The Nineteenth Century. Huxley used the principles of energy science to undermine George's theory, arguing that, energetically speaking, labor is unproductive.
George's early emphasis on the "productive forces of nature" is now dismissed even by otherwise Georgist authors.
See also
- GeolibertarianismGeolibertarianismGeolibertarianism is a political movement that strives to reconcile libertarianism and Georgism .Geolibertarians are advocates of geoism, which is the position that all natural resources – most importantly land – are common assets to which all individuals have an equal right to access; therefore if...
- GeorgismGeorgismGeorgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...
- Henry George TheoremHenry George TheoremThe Henry George Theorem, named for 19th century U.S. political economist and activist Henry George, states that under certain ideal conditions, aggregate spending by government will be equal to aggregate rent based on land value...
- Land Value TaxLand value taxA land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
- Left-libertarianismLeft-libertarianismLeft-libertarianism names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.-Schools of thought:...
- New York City mayoral elections
- Spaceship EarthSpaceship EarthSpaceship Earth is a world view term usually expressing concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth and the behavior of everyone on it to act as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good....
- Tammany Hall#1870-1900
- Charles HallCharles Hall (economist)Charles Hall was a British physician, social critic and Ricardian socialist who published The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States in 1805, condemning capitalism for its inability to provide for the poor. In the book, Hall argued that inequalities in wealth and the production...
- An early precursor to Henry George - History of the board game MonopolyHistory of the board game MonopolyThe history of the board game Monopoly can be traced back to the early 20th century. The earliest known design was by the American Elizabeth Magie created in 1903. A series of board games were developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of...
External links
- The Henry George Foundation (United Kingdom)
- The Henry George Foundation of America
- The Henry George Foundation of Australia
- The Life of Henry George, by Henry George Jr, 1904
- Henry George Papers, New York Public Library
- Biography of Henry George. Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib)
- Progress and Poverty, by Henry George, complete, free, definitive edition (1912, first published 1879), Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib)
- Protection or Free Trade, by Henry George, complete, free, definitive edition (1905, first published 1886), Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib)
- The Center for the Study of Economics
- The Henry George Institute - Understanding Economics
- The Henry George School, founded 1932.
- Robert S. Schalkenbach Foundation
- Online Works of Henry George
- Wealth and Want
- Prosper Australia
- Henry George Foundation OnlyMelbourne
- A Henry George Primer from Dollars & SenseDollars & SenseDollars & Sense is a magazine dedicated to providing left-wing perspectives on economics.Published six times a year since 1974, it is edited by a collective of economists, journalists, and activists committed to the ideals of social justice and economic democracy.It was initially sponsored by the...
- The Complete Works of Henry George. Publisher: New York, Doubleday, Page & company, 1904. Description: 10 v. fronts (v. 1-9) ports. 21 cm.. (searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVuDjVuDjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...
& layered PDF format) - The Crime of Poverty by Henry George
- Georgism - A Review Some mildly critical private commentary
- Henry George Photograph part of the Nineteenth Century Notables Digital Collection at Gettysburg College
- Centro Educativo Internacional Henry George (Managua, Nicaragua), in Spanish