American political economist (1839–1897)
Henry George
(September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American
political economist
social philosopher
and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the
Progressive Era
. He inspired the
economic philosophy
known as
Georgism
, the belief that people should own the value they produce themselves, but that the economic value of
land
(including
natural resources
) should belong equally to all members of society. George famously argued that a
single tax
on land values would create a more productive and just society.
His most famous work,
Progress and Poverty
(1879), sold millions of copies worldwide.
The treatise investigates the paradox of increasing inequality and poverty amid economic and technological progress, the
business cycle
with its cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of rent capture such as
land value taxation
and other anti-monopoly reforms as a remedy for these and other social problems. Other works by George defended
free trade
, the
secret ballot
, free (at marginal cost) public utilities/transportation provided by the capture of their resulting land rent uplift,
Pigouvian taxation
, and public ownership of other natural monopolies.
George was a journalist for many years, and the popularity of his writing and speeches brought him to run for election as
Mayor of New York City
in
1886
as the
United Labor Party
nominee and in
1897
as the Jefferson Democracy nominee,
where he received 31 percent and 4 percent of the vote respectively and finished ahead of former
New York State Assembly
minority leader
Theodore Roosevelt
in the first race. After his death during the second campaign, his ideas were carried forward by organizations and political leaders through the United States and other Anglophone countries. The mid-20th century labor economist and journalist
George Soule
wrote that George was by far "the most famous American economic writer" and "author of a book which probably had a larger world-wide circulation than any other work on economics ever written."
George's father Richard S. H. George
George was born in
Philadelphia
to a lower-middle-class family, the second of ten children of Richard S. H. George and Catharine Pratt George (née Vallance). His father was a publisher of religious texts and a devout
Episcopalian
, and he sent George to the
Episcopal Academy
in Philadelphia. George chafed at his religious upbringing and left the academy without graduating.
Instead he convinced his father to hire a tutor and supplemented this with avid reading and attending lectures at the
Franklin Institute
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 ended up in the American West in 1858 and briefly considered prospecting for gold but instead started work the same year in
San Francisco
as a
type setter
In California, George fell in love with Annie Corsina Fox from Sydney, Australia. They met on her seventeenth birthday on October 12, 1860. She 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 on December 3, 1861, with Henry dressed in a borrowed suit and Annie bringing only a packet of books.
George with his son
Henry Jr.
and daughter
Anna
c.
1897
The marriage was a happy one, and four children were born to them. On November 3, 1862, Annie gave birth to
Henry George Jr.
(1862–1916), a future
United States Representative
from New York. Early on, even with the birth of future sculptor Richard F. George (1865–1912),
the family was near starvation. George's other two children were both daughters. The first was Jennie George, (c. 1867–1897), later to become Jennie George Atkinson.
10
George's other daughter was
Anna Angela George
(1878–1947), 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.
11
Following the birth of his second child, George had no work and no money and had to beg for food. As he approached the first well-dressed stranger he saw in the street, George, normally a lawful man, decided to rob him if he was unwilling to help. Fortunately, the man took pity on him and gave him five dollars.
12
George was raised as an Episcopalian,
13
but he believed in "deistic humanitarianism". His wife Annie was
Irish Catholic
, but
Henry George Jr.
wrote that the children were mainly influenced by Henry George's
deism
and
humanism
14
15
Career in journalism
edit
George in 1857, age 17–18
George
c.
1860–1861, age 21
After deciding against
gold mining
in British Columbia, George was hired as a printer for the newly created San Francisco
Times
16
He was able to immediately submit editorials for publication, including the popular
What the Railroads Will Bring Us
(1868),
17
which remained required reading in California schools for decades.
citation needed
George climbed the ranks of the
Times
, eventually becoming managing editor in the summer of 1867.
18
19
George's first nationally prominent writing was his 1869 essay
The Chinese in California
, in which he wrote that Chinese immigration should be ended before Chinese immigrants overrun the western United States.
20
: 27
George worked for several papers, including four years (1871–1875) as editor of his own newspaper, the
San Francisco Daily Evening Post
, and for a time running the
Reporter
, a Democratic anti-monopoly publication.
21
22
23
George experienced four tough years of trying to keep his newspaper afloat and was eventually forced to go to the streets to beg. The George family struggled, but George's improving reputation and involvement in the newspaper industry lifted them from poverty.
Political and economic philosophy
edit
George
c.
1870–1871, age 31
George began as a
Lincoln
Republican
, then eventually became a
Democrat
. He was a strong critic of railroad and mining interests, corrupt politicians, land speculators, and labor contractors. He first articulated his views in an 1868 article entitled "What the Railroad Will Bring Us." George argued that the boom in railroad construction would benefit only the lucky few who owned interests in the railroads and other related enterprises, while throwing the greater part of the population into abject poverty. This had led to him earning the enmity of the
Central Pacific Railroad
's executives, who helped defeat his bid for election to the
California State Assembly
23
24
25
One day in 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:
I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, "I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege.
26
Portrait by
I. W. Taber
, taken shortly after writing
Progress and Poverty
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 three 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 rents
, 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 he indicated that such a system was equivalent to
slavery
. This is also the work in which he made the case for a
land value tax
in which governments would tax the value of the land itself, thus preventing private interests from profiting upon its mere possession but allowing the value of all improvements made to that land to remain with investors.
27
28
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 as or faster than wages were rising.
24
29
George first ran for public office in 1869, when he sought the Democratic nomination for California State Assembly. However, he refused to pay the party's assessment fee, and was therefore ineligible for consideration.
30
Despite this setback, he remained active in the
California Democratic Party
. Governor
Henry Huntly Haight
, impressed by the young journalist, recruited George to manage the party's newspaper in
Sacramento
, and in 1871 he served as secretary of the Democratic state convention as it renominated Haight. Later that year, he finally received the party's nomination for State Assembly, but was defeated alongside the rest of the ticket in a
Republican landslide
31
Advertisement in the
San Francisco Chronicle
for the local
Land Reform League
featuring George and future Congressman
James G. Maguire
, May 21, 1878
In the
1875 election
, George campaigned for
Democrat
William Irwin
, who handily won thanks to
Republican
vote splitting. A few months later, George was forced to give up the
Evening Post
due to a financial dispute with
U.S. Senator
John P. Jones
. Unable to find work or provide for his family, George wrote to Governor Irwin, who rewarded him with the office of State Inspector of Gas Meters.
32
George held that office from 1876
33
to 1880,
34
during which he was able to write
Progress and Poverty
. He also supplemented his income with paid lectures. Among those he consulted while writing the book were former State Superintendent of Public Instruction
John Swett
, University of California Regent
Andrew Smith Hallidie
Sacramento Bee
editor
James McClatchy
, future Congressman
James G. Maguire
and future San Francisco Mayor
Edward Robeson Taylor
35
Around the same time, the
anti-Chinese
Workingmen's Party
led by
Denis Kearney
was seeing a meteoric rise in popularity. George supported the party and endorsed their platform,
36
but took issue with Kearney himself. When
California's Second Constitutional Convention
was called in 1878, George was nominated as a delegate on both the Democratic and Workingmen's tickets, but lost the latter's nomination after he refused to recognize Kearney as leader of the party.
37
While an anti-Kearney faction still nominated him,
38
his refusal to toe the party line cost him the election, though he still polled the highest of any Democrat in the district.
37
While campaigning for the Democrats in California, George "cast black men in the South and Chinese in the West as tools of the corporations and the rich, and as threats to white manhood."
39
Imagine our Chinese population increased until it equaled or exceeded in number the whites. Imagine them all voters. Place in thought in the gubernatorial chair a canting hypocrite from the East, elected by Chinese votes, and holding office only to make as much out of it as he could before leaving the country. Fill up your legislature with Chinamen, Eastern adventurers, and whites from the Barbary Coast. Imagine Chinese militia, Chinese policemen, Chinese judges and Chinese school directors. Imagine the debt of the state run up at forty or fifty millions of dollars, every public fund squandered in the most shameless corruption... Gentlemen do you think that California in this condition would be a peaceful state?
— Henry George, Speech Made in San Francisco During the 1876 Presidential Election, in Henry George Papers (New York Public Library)
When the
California State Legislature
convened in
1881
to elect a
U.S. Senator
State Senator
Warren Chase
nominated George. In his nomination speech, Chase eulogized George as follows:
He has in knowledge of American and European history no superior in this State. He is a man who can be an honor to the State and nation and to the United States Senate, and an honor to himself; a man whose heart beats in sympathy with the great body of the people; a man who is eminently like unto that greatest of modern men—Abraham Lincoln; a man who, if the people were to select, would be selected as the champion of their rights; a man—a man who has already gained a national reputation as the ablest political economist of America, standing the peer of John Stuart Mill, Ricardo and Adam Smith, and all the writers of history on political economy.
40
George only received two votes out of 40 cast in the
State Senate
; one from Chase, and the other from fellow Workingmen's Senator
Joseph C. Gorman
41
In 1880, now a popular writer and speaker,
42
George moved to New York City, becoming closely allied with the
Irish nationalist
community despite being of
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.
"Taking a tumble," a
political cartoon
by
Joseph Keppler
published in
Puck
depicting George's defeat in the
1886 New York City mayoral election
, November 10, 1886
In
1886
, George campaigned for mayor of New York City as the candidate of the short-lived
United Labor Party
43
44
George was strongly supported in that campaign by his longtime ally in promoting the Single Tax theory,
Charles Frederic Adams
45
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.
46
In the
1887 New York state elections
, George came in a distant third in the election for
Secretary of State of New York
23
47
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. George had particular trouble with
Terrence V. Powderly
, president of the
Knights of Labor
, a key member of the United Labor coalition. While initially friendly with Powderly, George vigorously opposed the tariff policies which Powderly and many other labor leaders thought vital to the protection of American workers. George's strident criticism of the tariff set him against Powderly and others in the labor movement.
48
Portrait by Schaidner, 1897
In
1897
, George again ran for mayor of New York City, supported again, as he was in 1886, by Charles Frederic Adams.
49
However, he had his fatal stroke during the campaign.
50
51
His son, Henry Jr., was selected to replace him on the ballot, but he came in a distant fourth.
During George's life, communities in Delaware and Alabama were developed based on his single tax on land and this legacy continued through applications in a number of areas around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and
Taiwan
52
George's first stroke occurred in 1890, after a global speaking tour concerning land rights and the relationship between rent and poverty. This stroke greatly weakened him, and he never truly recovered. Despite this, George tried to remain active in politics. Against the advice of his doctors, George campaigned for New York City mayor again in 1897, this time as an Independent Democrat, saying, "I will make the race if I die for it." The strain of the campaign precipitated a second stroke, leading to his death four days before the election.
53
54
55
56
An estimated 100,000 people visited
Grand Central Palace
during the day to see Henry George's face, with an estimated equal number
57
crowding outside, unable to enter, and held back by police. After the Palace doors closed, the Reverend
Lyman Abbott
, Father
Edward McGlynn
, Rabbi
Gustav Gottheil
R. Heber Newton
(Episcopalian), and
John Sherwin Crosby
delivered addresses.
58
Separate memorial services were held elsewhere. In Chicago, five thousand people lined up to hear memorial addresses by former Illinois governor
John Peter Altgeld
and
John Lancaster Spalding
59
Mayor Strong
broke down and cried at a meeting, calling George a martyr.
56
George's funeral procession on Madison Avenue
The New York Times
reported that later in the evening, an organized funeral procession of about 2,000 people left from the Grand Central Palace and made its way through Manhattan to the
Brooklyn Bridge
. This procession was "all the way ... thronged on either side by crowds of silent watchers."
George's grave in
Green-Wood Cemetery
Brooklyn, New York
The procession then went on to
Brooklyn
, where the crowd at
Brooklyn City Hall
"was the densest ever seen there." There were "thousands on thousands" at City Hall who were so far back that they could not see the funeral procession pass. It was impossible to move on any of the nearby streets.
The Times
wrote, "Rarely has such an enormous crowd turned out in Brooklyn on any occasion," but that nonetheless, "[t]he slow tolling of the City Hall bell and the regular beating of drums were the only sounds that broke the stillness. ... Anything more impressive ... could not be imagined."
60
At Court Street, the casket was transferred to a hearse and taken to a private funeral at
Fort Hamilton
Commentators disagreed on whether it was the largest funeral in New York history or the largest since the death of
Abraham Lincoln
The New York Times
reported, "Not even Lincoln had a more glorious death."
61
Even the more conservative New York
Sun
wrote that, "Since the Civil War, few announcements have been more startling than that of the sudden death of Henry George."
62
Flags were placed at half-staff, even at Tammany Hall, which cancelled its rally for the day.
56
Views and policy proposals
edit
Socialization of land and natural resource rents
edit
"Everybody works but the vacant lot."
Henry George is best known for his argument that the
economic rent
of land (location) should be shared by society. The clearest statement of this view is found in
Progress and Poverty
: "We must make land common property."
63
64
By
taxing land values
, society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, raise wages, improve land use, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity. George believed it would remove existing incentives toward land speculation and encourage development, as landlords would not suffer tax penalties for any industry or edifice constructed on their land and could not profit by holding valuable sites vacant.
65
Broadly applying this principle is now commonly known as "
Georgism
." In George's time, it was known as the "single-tax" movement and sometimes associated with movements for land nationalization, especially in Ireland.
66
67
68
However, in
Progress and Poverty
, George did not favor the idea of nationalization.
I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. 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.
69
Municipalization of utilities and free public transit
edit
George considered businesses relying on exclusive
right-of-way
land privilege to be
"natural" monopolies
. Examples of these services included the transportation of utilities (water, electricity, sewage), information (telecommunications), goods, and travelers. George advocated that these systems of transport along "public ways" should usually be managed as
public utilities
and
provided for free
or at
marginal cost
. In some cases, it might be possible to allow competition between private service providers along public "rights of way," such as parcel shipping companies that operate on public roads, but wherever competition would be impossible, George supported complete
municipalization
. George said that these services would be provided for free because investments in beneficial public goods always
tend to increase land values by more than the total cost of those investments
. George used the example of urban buildings that provide free vertical transit, paid out of some of the increased value that residents derive from the addition of elevators.
70
71
Intellectual property reform
edit
George was opposed to or suspicious of all intellectual property privilege, because his classical definition of
"land"
included "all natural forces and opportunities." Therefore, George proposed to abolish or greatly limit intellectual property privilege. In George's view, owning a monopoly over specific arrangements and interactions of materials, governed by the forces of nature, allowed title-holders to extract royalty-rents from producers, in a way similar to owners of ordinary land titles. George later supported limited copyright, on the ground that temporary property over a unique arrangement of words or colors did not in any way prevent others from laboring to make other works of art.
72
George apparently ranked patent rents as a less significant form of monopoly than the owners of land title deeds, partly because he viewed the owners of locations as "the robber that takes all that is left." People could choose not to buy a specific new product, but they cannot choose to lack a place upon which to stand, so benefits gained for labor through lesser reforms would tend to eventually be captured by owners and financiers of location monopoly.
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. He argued that tariffs kept prices high for consumers, while failing to produce any increase in overall wages. He also believed that tariffs protected monopolistic companies from competition, thus augmenting their power. Free trade became a major issue in federal politics and his book
Protection or Free Trade
was the first book to be read entirely into the
Congressional Record
73
It was read by five Democratic congressmen.
74
75
In 1997,
Spencer MacCallum
wrote that Henry George was "undeniably the greatest writer and orator on free trade who ever lived."
76
In 2009,
Tyler Cowen
wrote that George's 1886 book
Protection or Free Trade
"remains perhaps the best-argued tract on free trade to this day."
77
Jim Powell
said that
Protection or Free Trade
was probably the best book on trade written by anyone in the Americas, comparing it to
Adam Smith
's
Wealth of Nations
Milton Friedman
said it was the most rhetorically brilliant work ever written on trade.
78
Friedman also paraphrased one of George's arguments in favor of free trade: "It's a very interesting thing that in times of war, we blockade our enemies in order to prevent them from getting goods from us. In time of peace we do to ourselves by tariffs what we do to our enemy in time of war."
79
Artist:
George de Forest Brush
, Sitter: Henry George, Date: 1888
George was one of the earliest and most prominent advocates of the
secret ballot
in the United States.
80
Harvard
historian
Jill Lepore
asserts that Henry George's advocacy is the reason Americans vote with secret ballots today.
61
George's first article in support of the secret ballot was entitled "Bribery in Elections" and was published in the
Overland Review
of December 1871. His second article was "Money in Elections," published in the
North American Review
of March 1883. The first secret ballot reform approved by a state legislature was brought about by reformers who said they were influenced by George.
81
The first state to adopt the secret ballot, also called The Australian Ballot, was Massachusetts in 1888 under the leadership of
Richard Henry Dana III
. By 1891, more than half the states had adopted it too.
82
Money creation, banking, and national deficit reform
edit
George supported the use of "debt free" (
sovereign money
) currency, such as the
greenback
, which governments would spend into circulation to help finance public spending through the capture of
seigniorage
rents. He opposed the use of metallic currency, such as gold or silver, and fiat money created by private commercial banks.
83
Citizen's dividend and universal pension
edit
George advocated a
citizen's dividend
paid for by a
land value tax
in an April 1885 speech at a
Knights of Labor
local
in
Burlington, Iowa
titled "The Crime of Poverty", and later in an interview with former
U.S. House Representative
David Dudley Field II
from
New York's 7th congressional district
published in the July 1885 edition of the
North American Review
As an English friend of mine puts it: No taxes and a pension for everybody; and why should it not be? To take land values for public purposes is not really to impose a tax, but to take for public purposes a value created by the community. And out of the fund which would thus accrue from the common property, we might, without degradation to anybody, provide enough to actually secure from want all who were deprived of their natural protectors or met with accident, or any man who should grow so old that he could not work. All prating that is heard from some quarters about its hurting the common people to give them what they do not work for is humbug. The truth is, that anything that injures self-respect, degrades, does harm; but if you give it as a right, as something to which every citizen is entitled to, it does not degrade. Charity schools do degrade children that are sent to them, but public schools do not.
84
85
George proposed to create a pension and disability system, and an unconditional
basic income
from surplus land rents. It would be distributed to residents "as a right" instead of as charity. Georgists often refer to this policy as a
citizen's dividend
in reference to a similar proposal by
Thomas Paine
Bankruptcy protection and an abolition of debtors' prisons
edit
George noted that most debt, though bearing the appearance of genuine capital interest, was not issued for the purpose of creating true capital, but instead as an obligation against rental flows from existing economic privilege. George therefore reasoned that the state should not provide aid to creditors in the form of sheriffs, constables, courts, and prisons to enforce collection on these illegitimate obligations. George did not provide any data to support this view, but in today's developed economies, much of the supply of credit is created to purchase claims on future land rents, rather than to finance the creation of true capital.
Michael Hudson
and
Adair Turner
estimate that about 80 percent of credit finances real estate purchases, mostly land.
86
87
George acknowledged that this policy would limit the banking system but believed that would actually be an economic boon, since the financial sector, in its existing form, was mostly augmenting rent extraction, as opposed to productive investment. "The curse of credit," George wrote, was "... that it expands when there is a tendency to speculation, and sharply contracts just when most needed to assure confidence and prevent industrial waste." George even said that a
debt jubilee
could remove the accumulation of burdensome obligations without reducing aggregate wealth.
88
George was an important and vocal advocate of women's political rights. He argued for extending suffrage to women. George wrote, "The cause of woman suffrage is steadily, though slowly and quietly making progress in public opinion. In a large and ever widening circle the women who want to vote are no longer deemed masculine nor the men who would have them vote, effeminate. The goal has not been reached and may yet be far off, but since the first woman's rights convention was held in the United States forty years ago, great advances have been made.."
89
George also advocated for reforms based on changing taxation around land values. In
Progress and Poverty
, he argued that increases in land value stem largely from social and economic development rather than individual effort, and therefore could be used as a main source of public revenue.
90
He argued that taxing land values would discourage speculative holding of unused land and promote more efficient land use, while allowing the reduction of taxes on labor and capital.
91
George believed that shifting taxation away from productive activity would encourage economic growth and reduce inequality. Later explanations of his work have shown that he identified economic rent as a source of inefficiency in markets, and that taxing unearned income from land could improve incentives without reducing production.
92
He also linked monopoly power to the concentration of economic rent, arguing that control over land and natural resources allowed individuals to benefit from social development without contributing to production.
93
Henry George also proposed and advocated the following reforms:
Dramatic reductions in the size of the military.
Replacement of contract patronage with the direct employment of government workers, with civil-service protections.
Building and maintenance of free libraries.
94
Campaign finance reform and political spending restrictions.
Careful regulation of all monopolies. George advocated regulations to eliminate monopolies when possible and government ownership of monopolies as a policy of last resort.
Henry George's ideas on politics and economics had enormous influence in his time. His ideas gave rise to the economic philosophy now known as
Georgism
. However, his influence slowly waned through the 20th century. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to overstate George's impact on turn-of-the-century reform movements and intellectual culture. George's self-published
Progress and Poverty
was the first popular economics text and one of the most widely printed books ever written. The book's explosive worldwide popularity is often marked as the beginning of the
Progressive Era
and various political parties, clubs, and charitable organizations around the world were founded on George's ideas. George's message attracts support widely across the
political spectrum
, including labor union activists, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, reformers, conservatives, and wealthy investors. As a result, Henry George is still claimed as a primary intellectual influence by both
classical liberals
and
socialists
Edwin Markham
expressed a common sentiment when he said, "Henry George has always been to me one of the supreme heroes of humanity."
97
A large
number of famous individuals
, particularly Progressive Era figures, claim inspiration from Henry George's ideas.
John Peter Altgeld
wrote that George "made almost as great an impression on the economic thought of the age as Darwin did on the world of science."
98
José Martí
wrote, "Only Darwin in the natural sciences has made a mark comparable to George's on social science."
99
In 1892,
Alfred Russel Wallace
stated that George's
Progress and Poverty
was "undoubtedly the most remarkable and important book of the present century," implicitly placing it above even
The Origin of Species
, which he had earlier helped develop and publicize.
100
Franklin D. Roosevelt
praised George as "one of the really great thinkers produced by our country" and bemoaned the fact that George's writings were not better known and understood.
101
George's views influenced the
New Deal
20
: 27
Yet even several decades earlier,
William Jennings Bryan
wrote that George's genius had reached the global reading public and that he "was one of the foremost thinkers of the world."
102
Former President
Rutherford B. Hayes
said of him:
Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system. We are, to say the least, not yet ready for his remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, wills, trusts, taxation, and a host of other important interests, not omitting lands and other property.
103
John Dewey
wrote, "It would require less than the fingers of the two hands to enumerate those who from Plato down rank with him," and that "No man, no graduate of a higher educational institution, has a right to regard himself as an educated man in social thought unless he has some first-hand acquaintance with the theoretical contribution of this great American thinker."
104
Albert Jay Nock
wrote that anyone who rediscovers Henry George will find that "George was one of the first half-dozen [greatest] minds of the nineteenth century, in all the world."
105
The anti-war activist
John Haynes Holmes
echoed that sentiment by commenting that George was "one of the half-dozen great Americans of the nineteenth century, and one of the outstanding social reformers of all time."
106
Edward McGlynn
said, "[George] is one of the greatest geniuses that the world has ever seen, and ... the qualities of his heart fully equal the magnificent gifts of his intellect. ... He is a man who could have towered above all his equals in almost any line of literary or scientific pursuit."
107
Likewise,
Leo Tolstoy
wrote that George was "one of the greatest men of the 19th century."
108
The social scientist and economist
John A. Hobson
observed in 1897 that "Henry George may be considered to have exercised a more directly powerful formative and educative influence over English
radicalism
of the last fifteen years than any other man,"
109
and that George "was able to drive an abstract notion, that of economic rent, into the minds of a large number of 'practical' men, and so generate therefrom a social movement. George had all the popular gifts of the American orator and journalist, with something more. Sincerity rang out of every utterance."
110
Many others agree with Hobson.
George Bernard Shaw
, who created socialist organizations such as the
Fabian Society
, claims that Henry George was responsible for inspiring 5 out of 6 socialist reformers in Britain during the 1880s.
111
The controversial
People's Budget
and the
Land Values (Scotland) Bill
were inspired by Henry George and resulted in a constitutional crisis and the
Parliament Act 1911
to reform of the
House of Lords
, which had blocked the land reform. 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, with diminishing success afterwards.
Non-political means have also been attempted to further the cause. A number of "Single Tax Colonies" were started, such as
Arden, Delaware
and
Fairhope, Alabama
. In 1904,
Lizzie Magie
created a board game called
The Landlord's Game
to demonstrate George's theories. This was later turned into the popular board game
Monopoly
Landlords Game
board, based on
Lizzie Magie's
1924 US patent (no. 1,509,312).
Joseph Jay "J.J." Pastoriza
led a successful Georgist movement in
Houston
. Though the Georgist club, the Houston Single Tax League, started there in 1890, Pastoriza lent use of his property to the league in 1903. He retired from the printing business in 1906 in order to dedicate his life to public service, then traveled the United States and Europe while studying various systems of taxing property. He returned to Houston and served as Houston Tax Commissioner from 1911 through 1917. He introduced his "Houston Plan of Taxation" in 1912: improvements to land and merchants' inventories were taxed at 25 percent of appraised value, unimproved land was taxed at 70 percent of appraisal, and personal property was exempt. However, in 1915, two courts ruled that the Houston Plan violated the Texas Constitution.
112
Before reading
Progress and Poverty
Helen Keller
was a socialist who believed that
Georgism
was a good step in the right direction.
113
She later wrote of finding "in Henry George's philosophy a rare beauty and power of inspiration, and a splendid faith in the essential nobility of human nature."
114
Some speculate that the passion, sincerity, clear explanations evident in Henry George's writing account for the almost religious passion that many believers in George's theories exhibit, and that the promised possibility of creating heaven on Earth filled a spiritual void during an era of secularization.
115
Josiah Wedgwood
, the
Liberal
and later
Labour Party
politician wrote that ever since reading Henry George's work, "I have known 'that there was a man from God, and his name was Henry George.' I had no need hence-forth for any other faith."
116
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.
117
On his part, Henry George predicted that the forced introduction of
socialism
"would, if carried to full expression, mean Egyptian
despotism
."
118
Leo Tolstoy
deplored that a silence had fallen around George, for he viewed
Georgism
as reasonable and realistic, as opposed to other utopian movements,
119
and as a "contribution to the enlightenment of the consciousness of mankind, placed on a practical footing,"
120
121
and that it could help do away with what he called the
Slavery of Our Times
."
122
Upon Marx's death, George admitted he has not read any of his works, which were untranslated into English at the time, but described him as a man who "so steadfastly, so patiently, and so self-sacrificingly labored for the freedom of the oppressed and the elevation of the downtrodden".
123
Henry George's popularity waned gradually during the 20th century. However, there are still
Georgist
organizations. Many influential people who remain famous, such as
George Bernard Shaw
, were inspired by George or
identify as Georgists
. In his last book,
Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?
Martin Luther King Jr.
referred to Henry George in support of a
guaranteed minimum income
Bill Moyers
quoted Henry George in a speech and identified George as a "great personal hero."
124
Albert Einstein
wrote that "Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice. Every line is written as if for our generation. The spreading of these works is a really deserving cause, for our generation especially has many and important things to learn from Henry George."
125
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, land value – rather than labor or capital – should provide the tax base to fund government and its expenditures.
126
British MP
Andrew MacLaren
believed George's ideas of land taxation would bring about economic justice and argued in favour of them in the
House of Commons
. Together with his son
Leon MacLaren
he founded the
School of Economic Science
, a global organisation teaching Georgist principles.
127
Joseph Stiglitz
wrote that "One of the most important but underappreciated ideas in economics is the Henry George principle of taxing the economic rent of land, and more generally, natural resources." Stiglitz also claims that we now know
land value tax
"is even better than Henry George thought."
128
129
The
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
publishes copies of George's works and related texts on economic reform and sponsors academic research into his policy proposals. The
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
was founded to promote the ideas of Henry George but now focuses more generally on land economics and policy. The Henry George School of Social Science of New York and its satellite schools teach classes and conduct outreach.
Henry George theorem
edit
In 1977,
Joseph Stiglitz
showed that under certain conditions, spending by the government on
public goods
will increase aggregate land rents by at least an equal amount. This result has been dubbed by economists the
Henry George theorem
, as it characterizes a situation where Henry George's "single tax" is not only efficient, but also the only tax necessary to finance public expenditures.
130
Economic contributions
edit
George reconciled the issues of efficiency and equity, showing that both could be satisfied under a system in harmony with
natural law
131
fact or opinion?
He showed that
David Ricardo
's
Law of Rent
applied not just to an agricultural economy, but even more so to urban economics. And he showed that there is no inherent conflict between labor and capital provided one maintained a clear distinction between classical factors of production, capital and land.
George developed what he saw as a crucial feature of his own theory of economics in a critique of an illustration used by
Frédéric Bastiat
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.
132
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."
133
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. In his treatise,
Capital and Interest
, he wrote:
(T)he separation of production into two groups, in one of which the vital forces of nature form a distinct element in addition to labour, while in the other they do not, is entirely untenable... The natural sciences have long ago told us that the cooperation of nature is universal. ... The muscular movement of the man who planes would be of very little use, if the natural powers and properties of the steel edge of the plane did not come to his assistance.
134
Later, George argued that the role of time in production is pervasive. In
The Science of Political Economy
, he writes:
[I]f I go to a builder and say to him, "In what time and at what price will you build me such and such a house?" he would, after thinking, name a time, and a price based on it. This specification of time would be essential. ... This I would soon find if, not quarreling with the price, I ask him largely to lessen the time. ... I might get the builder somewhat to lessen the time ... ; but only by greatly increasing the price, until finally a point would be reached where he would not consent to build the house in less time no matter at what price. He would say [that the house just could not be built any faster]. ...
The importance ... of this principle – that all production of wealth requires time as well as labor – we shall see later on; but the principle that time is a necessary element in all production we must take into account from the very first.
135
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
."
136
On the contrary, George explicitly used marginal utility in his analyses of both the 'margin of production' in macroeconomics and microeconomic decision theory.
137
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 scientific principles of energy to undermine George's theory, arguing that, energetically speaking, labor is unproductive.
138
George's writings were also a major influence on
Sun Yat-sen
's program for modernizing China's economy.
20
: 27
Chiang Kai-shek
and
Soong Mei-ling
praised George's economic writings in the 1940s, well after the writings were no longer a major topic in the United States.
20
: 27
"American History: Excerpt from Henry George Progress and Poverty 1879"
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. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 747.
Soule, George.
Ideas of the Great Economists
(1955) p. 81.
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1st. ed., s.v. "George, Henry," edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, Vol. VII (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931), pp. 211–212.
David Montgomery,
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s.v. "George, Henry," February 2000,
Accessed September 3, 2011
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O'Donnell, Edward (2015).
Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age
. Columbia University Press.
ISBN
978-0231539265
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"Single Taxers Dine Johnson; Medallion Made by Son of Henry George Presented to Cleveland's Former Mayor"
The New York Times
– May 31, 1910
"Obituary –
The New York Times
, May 4, 1897"
(PDF)
De Mille, Agnes.
"Finding aid to the Agnes De Mille papers SSC.MS.00046"
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Hill, Malcolm (1999).
Enemy of injustice : the life of Andrew MacLaren, Member of Parliament
. London: Othila Press.
ISBN
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Read, Colin (2016).
The Public Financiers: Ricardo, George, Clark, Ramsey, Mirrlees, Vickrey, Wicksell, Musgrave, Buchanan, Tiebout, and Stiglitz
. Springer.
ISBN
978-1137341341
"How Henry George, Jr., Got into the Catholic 'Who's Who'
The Fortnightly Review
18
: 704. 1911
. Retrieved
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Montgomery, David (February 2000).
George, Henry (1839–1897), economist and reformer
Formaini, Robert L. (June 2005).
"Henry George : Antiprotectionist Giant of American Economics"
Economic Insights of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
10
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Archived
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"What the Railroad Will Bring Us"
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Henry, George, Jr.
The Life of Henry George
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"George, Henry"
Encyclopedia.com
. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
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Crean, Jeffrey (2024).
The Fear of Chinese Power: an International History
. New Approaches to International History series. London:
Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN
978-1350233942
Charles A. Barker, "Henry George and the California Background of
Progress and Poverty
,"
California Historical Society Quarterly
24, no. 2 (Jun. 1945), 103–104.
Dictionary of American Biography,
s.v. "George, Henry," pp. 211–212.
Montgomery,
American National Biography Online,
s.v. "George, Henry,"
Accessed September 3, 2011.
George, Henry (October 1868).
"What the Railroad Will Bring Us"
Overland Monthly
. Vol. 1, no. 4. San Francisco, California. Archived from
the original
on April 26, 2012
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August 13,
2025
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s.v. "George, Henry," 213.
Nock, Albert Jay
Henry George: Unorthodox American, Part IV
Jurgen G. Backhaus, "Henry George's Ingenious Tax: A Contemporary Restatement,"
American Journal of Economics and Sociology
56, no. 4 (Oct. 1997), 453–458
Henry George,
Progress and Poverty,
(1879; reprinted, London: Kegan Paul, Tench & Co., 1886), 283–284.
Charles A. Barker, "Henry George and the California Background of
Progress and Poverty
,"
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24, no. 2 (Jun. 1945), 97–115.
George, Henry Jr. (1900).
The Life of Henry George
. New York:
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
. p. 206
. Retrieved
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2024
George, Henry Jr. (1900).
The Life of Henry George
. New York:
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
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218
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2024
George, Henry Jr. (1900).
The Life of Henry George
. New York:
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. pp.
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249
. Retrieved
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"News of the morning"
The Sacramento Daily Union
. Sacramento. January 8, 1876
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
"A successor for Henry George"
Santa Barbara Weekly Press
. Santa Barbara. April 10, 1880
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
George, Henry Jr. (1900).
The Life of Henry George
. New York:
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
. pp.
293–
294, 307
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
"Does he mean to resign?"
The Sacramento Daily Union
. Sacramento. May 20, 1878
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
George, Henry Jr. (1900).
The Life of Henry George
. New York:
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
. pp.
298–
300
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
"Convention of the Workingmen's Party"
The Daily Alta California
. San Francisco. June 4, 1878
. Retrieved
October 8,
2024
White, Richard (2017).
The republic for which it stands : the United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896
. Internet Archive. New York, NY : Oxford University Press. pp.
275–
276.
ISBN
978-0199735815
"Henry George"
Red Bluff Sentinel
. Red Bluff. January 15, 1881
. Retrieved
October 7,
2024
"The State Legislature"
San Jose Herald
. San Jose. January 12, 1881
. Retrieved
October 7,
2024
According to his granddaughter
Agnes de Mille
Progress and Poverty
and its successors made Henry George the third most famous man in the US, behind only
Mark Twain
and
Thomas Edison
[1]
Genovese, Frank C. (1991).
"Henry George and Organized Labor: The 19th Century Economist and Social Philosopher Championed Labor's Cause, but Used Its Candidacy for Propaganda"
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
50
(1):
113–
127.
doi
10.1111/j.1536-7150.1991.tb02500.x
ISSN
0002-9246
JSTOR
3487043
O'Donnell, Edward (October 22, 2015).
"Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality"
www.c-span.org
. Retrieved
November 7,
2021
The Public: A National Journal of Fundamental Democracy and History in the Making
. “Charles Frederic Adams”. June 10, 1910. Pp 532-536.
The Sun (New York), Nov. 4, 1886, p. 2, reported on George's allegations of electoral fraud in his speech to followers, after the election. The newspaper's editorialist was not aware any evidence. The New York Times, Nov 04, 1886 ·p. 5, reported on some minor revisions to the initial, reported vote counts; but it does not cite the reasons, and the final, electoral results were not affected.
Dictionary of American Biography,
s.v. "George, Henry," 214–215.
Robert E. Weir, "A Fragile Alliance: Henry George and the Knights of Labor,"
American Journal of Economics and Sociology
56, no. 4 (Oct. 1997), 423–426.
The Public.
Op. Cit.
"Historical Echoes: Henry George – NYC Mayoral Candidate and Best-Selling, Self-Educated Political Economist – Liberty Street Economics"
libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org
. January 6, 2012
. Retrieved
May 12,
2020
Morton, Richard Allen (2016).
Roger C. Sullivan and the Making of the Chicago Democratic Machine, 1881–1908
. McFarland. p. 108.
ISBN
978-1476663777
. Retrieved
May 11,
2020
Caves, R. W. (2004).
Encyclopedia of the City
. Routledge. p. 301.
Dictionary of American Biography,
s. V. "George, Henry," 215.
Montgomery,
American National Biography,
s.v. "George, Henry,"
"Henry George's Death Abroad. London Papers Publish Long Sketches and Comment on His Career"
The New York Times
. October 30, 1897
. Retrieved
March 7,
2010
The newspapers today are devoting much attention to the death of Henry George, the candidate of the Jeffersonian Democracy for the office of Mayor of Greater New York, publishing long sketches of his career and philosophical and economical theories.
New York Times October 30, 1897,
Gabriel, Ralph (1946).
Course of American democratic thought
. p. 204.
Yardley, Edmund (1905).
Addresses at the funeral of Henry George, Sunday, October 31, 1897
. Chicago: The Public publishing company.
hdl
2027/loc.ark:/13960/t39z9vd7k
University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, [Box 37, Folder 3], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
"The Funeral Procession"
(PDF)
The New York Times
. November 1, 1897
. Retrieved
July 16,
2015
Lepore, Jill (October 15, 2011).
"Forget 9-9-9. Here's a Simple Plan: 1"
The New York Times
. Retrieved
September 7,
2015
Henry George, Citizen of the World
. By Anna George de Mille. Edited by Don C. Shoemaker. With an Introduction by Agnes de Mille. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1950.
ISBN missing
page needed
George, Henry (1879).
"The True Remedy"
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth
. Vol. VI. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
ISBN
0914016601
. Retrieved
May 12,
2008
Lough, Alexandra.
"The Last Tax: Henry George and the Social Politics of Land Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era"
Academia.edu
George only sought to make land common property through the socialization of land rent, or what many have called the "unearned increment" of land value.
Backhaus, "Henry George's Ingenious Tax," 453–458.
"Supplement to Encyclopædia Britannica"
. 1889.
The labor vote in the election was trifling until Henry George had commenced an agitation for the nationalization of land.
Thompson, Robert Ellis; Barker, Wharton (1888).
"The American: A National Journal, Volumes 15–16"
"A Reception to Mr. George"
The New York Times
. October 21, 1882.
Mr. George expressed his thanks for the reception and predicted that soon the movement in favor of land nationalization would be felt all over the civilized world.
George, Henry (1879).
"How Equal Rights to the Land May Be Asserted and Secured"
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth
. Vol. VIII. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
ISBN
0914016601
. Retrieved
November 27,
2016
Armstrong, K. L. (1895).
The Little Statesman: A Middle-of-the-road Manual for American Voters
. Schulte Publishing Company. pp.
125–
127
. Retrieved
January 15,
2016
George, Henry (October 6, 1886).
"Throwing His Hat in the Ring: Henry George Runs for Mayor (Acceptance Speech)"
New York World, New York Tribune, New York Star, and New York Times
. Retrieved
February 1,
2016
"Henry George / On Patents and Copyrights"
cooperative-individualism.org
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December 1,
2025
George, Henry (2016).
The annotated works of Henry George
. Madison, NJ; Lanham, MD; New York: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
ISBN
978-1611477016
Weir, "A Fragile Alliance," 425–425
Henry George,
Protection or Free Trade: An Examination of the Tariff Question, with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor
(New York: 1887).
MacCallum, Spencer H. (Summer–Fall 1997).
"The Alternative Georgist Tradition"
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Fragments
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. Archived from
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(PDF)
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Cowen, Tyler (May 1, 2009).
"Anti-Capitalist Rerun"
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Powell, Jim (June 11, 2016).
"Milton Friedman's Favorite Book on Trade"
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. Retrieved
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Obenhaus, Matthew (March 7, 2016).
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Lepore, Jill
(October 13, 2008).
"Rock, Paper, Scissors: How we used to vote"
New Yorker
Saltman, Roy (2008).
The history and politics of voting technology : chads and other scandals
. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 97.
ISBN
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For a more complete discussion of the adoption of the Australian Ballot, see Saltman, Roy G., (2006),
The History and Politics of Voting Technology,
Palgrave Macmillan, NY, pp. 96–103.
"To illustrate: It is not the business of government to interfere with the views which any one may hold of the Creator or with the worship he may choose to pay him, so long as the exercise of these individual rights does not conflict with the equal liberty of others; and the result of governmental interference in this domain has been hypocrisy, corruption, persecution and religious war. It is not the business of government to direct the employment of labor and capital, and to foster certain industries at the expense of other industries; and the attempt to do so leads to all the waste, loss and corruption due to protective tariffs."
"On the other hand it is the business of government to issue money. This is perceived as soon as the great labor saving invention of money supplants barter. To leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government. When in the progress of society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government function become still stronger. The evils entailed by wildcat banking in the United States are too well remembered to need reference. The loss and inconvenience, the swindling and corruption that flowed from the assumption by each State of the Union of the power to license banks of issue ended with the war, and no one would now go back to them. Yet instead of doing what every public consideration impels us to, and assuming wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the General Government the power to issue money, the private interests of bankers have, up to this, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of which a large part, though guaranteed by the General Government, is issued and made profitable to corporations. The legitimate business of banking – the safekeeping and loaning of money, and the making and exchange of credits – is properly left to individuals and associations; but by leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and guarantees, the issuance of money, the people of the United States suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and sensibly increase the influences which exert a corrupting effect upon their government."
The Complete Works of Henry George
. "Social Problems," p. 178, Doubleday Page & Co., New York, 1904
ISBN missing
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. Rochester, NY. University of Rochester Press, 1997.
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Indestructible By Reason of Beauty: The Beaumanance of a Public Library Building
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Great Debates in American History
. New York:
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. pp.
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408
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Live Questions
(PDF)
. Geo. S Bowen & Son. Archived from
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José Martí : selected writings
. New York: Penguin Books.
ISBN
0142437042
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Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community
. New York: Oxford UP, 1990.
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. Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin, 1985. 353.
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The Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes, Nineteenth President of the United States
. Vol. 4. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society. p. 354.
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September 13,
2014
A sermon that first appeared as No. VIII, Series 1944–45 of the Community Pulpit, published by The Community Church, New York City. Reprinted as a pamphlet by the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation <
"John Haynes Holmes / Henry George – 1945"
. Archived from
the original
on December 22, 2015
. Retrieved
September 16,
2015
Louis F. Post and Fred C. Leubusher,
Henry George's 1886 Campaign: An Account of the George-Hewitt Campaign in the New York Municipal Election of 1886
(New York: John W. Lovell Company, 1887)
Sekirin, Peter (2006).
Americans in conversation with Tolstoy : selected accounts, 1887–1923
. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
ISBN
078642253X
"Henry George | Encyclopedia.com"
www.encyclopedia.com
Hobson, John A. (1897).
"The Influence of Henry George in England"
The Fortnightly
68
. Retrieved
August 15,
2015
Henderson, Archibald. George Bernard Shaw, His Life and Works. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1911.
Davis, Stephen (1986).
"Joseph Jay Pastoriza and the Single Tax in Houston, 1911–1917"
(PDF)
. Vol. 8, no. 2. Houston Review: history and culture of the Gulf Coast.
"Wonder Woman at Massey Hall: Helen Keller Spoke to Large Audience Who Were Spellbound"
. Toronto Star Weekly. January 1914
. Retrieved
October 31,
2014
"Progress & Poverty"
Robert Schalkenbach Fdn.
Mulvey, Paul (2002).
"The Single-Taxers and the Future of Liberalism, 1906–1914"
Journal of Liberal Democrat
(34/35 Spring/Summer)
. Retrieved
August 15,
2015
Mulvey, Paul (2010).
The Political Life of Josiah C. Wedgwood: Land, Liberty and Empire, 1872–1943
. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY: Boydell Press.
ISBN
978-0861933082
"Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1881"
www.marxists.org
Moss, Laurence S. (2009).
Henry George: Political Ideologue, Social Philosopher and Economic Theorist
. John Wiley & Sons. p. 85.
ISBN
978-1444307061
L. Tolstoï. Où est l'issu? (1899)
In
Les Rayons de l'aube (Dernières études philosophiques). (Tr. J-W Bienstock) Paris; P.-V. Stock Éditeur, 1901, chap. xxiii, pp. 393–411.
s:Letter on Henry George (I)
s:Letter on Henry George (II)
s:The Slavery of Our Times
Oatman, Bruce (September 25, 2012).
"Henry George's Letter at the Funeral of Karl Marx"
georgistjournal.org
. Retrieved
November 15,
2023
Archived at
Ghostarchive
and the
Wayback Machine
"Bill Moyers at the Howard Zinn Lecture"
. YouTube. November 12, 2010
. Retrieved
July 26,
2012
permanent dead link
Gaffney, Mason and Harrison, Fred.
The Corruption of Economics
(London: Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd., 1994)
ISBN
978-0856832444
(paperback).
Stewart, John (2001).
Standing for justice : a biography of Andrew MacLaren, MP
. London: Shepheard-Walwyn.
ISBN
0856831948
OCLC
49362105
Cleveland, M. M. (2012).
"The Economics of Henry George: A Review Essay"
(PDF)
American Journal of Economics and Sociology
71
(2):
498–
511.
doi
10.1111/j.1536-7150.2012.00832.x
Stiglitz, Joseph; Presentation at a Institute for New Economic Thinking conference on Apr 8, 2015
Arnott, Richard J.; Joseph E. Stiglitz (November 1979).
"Aggregate Land Rents, Expenditure on Public Goods, and Optimal City Size"
(PDF)
Quarterly Journal of Economics
93
(4):
471–
500.
Bibcode
1979QJEco..93..471A
doi
10.2307/1884466
JSTOR
1884466
S2CID
53374401
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on August 17, 2017
. Retrieved
April 20,
2018
"Archived copy"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on March 3, 2012
. Retrieved
January 27,
2014
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link
Frédéric Bastiat,
That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
, 1850.
Henry George,
Progress and Poverty,
, 161.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk,
Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economic Theory
transl. William Smart (London: Macmillan and Co., 1890), 417.
Henry George,
The Science of Political Economy
(New York: Doubleday & McClure Co., 1898), 369–370.
Johannsen, Oscar B.
Henry George and the Austrian economists.
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
(Am. j. econ. sociol.)
ISSN
0002-9246
. Abstract.
"The Science of Political Economy, Part III, Chapter 5"
politicaleconomy.org
T.H. Huxley,
"Capital – the Mother of Labour: An Economical Problem Discussed from a Physiological Point of View,"
The Nineteenth Century
(Mar. 1890).
Barker, Charles Albro.
Henry George
. Oxford University Press (1955); Greenwood Press (1974).
ISBN
0837177758
Benestad, J. Brian. "A Catholic Response to Henry George's Critique of Pope Leo XIII's 'Rerum Novarum.'" American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 4 (2012): 913–37.
JSTOR
41721431
Hooper, Charles L. (2008).
"Henry George (1839–1897)"
. In
Henderson, David R.
(ed.).
The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
Library of Economics and Liberty
(2nd ed.).
Liberty Fund
. pp.
536–
37.
ISBN
978-0865976665
Hudson, Michael. "Henry George's Political Critics." The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 67, no. 1 (2008): 1–46.
JSTOR
27739689
Istre, Logan S. "The Enigma of San Francisco: Henry George and the Historians."
Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
, no. 1 (2025): 73–92.
The Enigma of San Francisco: Henry George and the Historians
Lough, Alex Wagner. "Henry George, Frederick Jackson Turner, and the 'Closing' of the American Frontier." California History 89, no. 2 (2012): 4–54.
doi
10.2307/23215319
O'Donnell, Edward T. "'Though Not an Irishman': Henry George and the American Irish."
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
56, no. 4 (1997): 407–19.
JSTOR
487325
Peter d'A. Jones. "Henry George and British Socialism."
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
47, no. 4 (1988): 473–91.
JSTOR
3486564
Wikisource
has original works by or about:
Works by Henry George in eBook form
at
Standard Ebooks
Works by Henry George
at
Project Gutenberg
The Henry George Foundation (United Kingdom)
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
Land Value Taxation Campaign
(UK)
The Henry George Foundation of Australia
The Center for the Study of Economics
The Henry George Institute – Understanding Economics
The Henry George School
, founded 1932.
Works by or about Henry George
at the
Internet Archive
Works by Henry George
at
LibriVox
(public domain audiobooks)
Online Works of Henry George
Wealth and Want
Archived
March 8, 2018, at the
Wayback Machine
Prosper Australia
Henry George Foundation OnlyMelbourne
The Complete Works of Henry George
Archived
September 11, 2006, at the
Wayback Machine
. 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;
DjVu
layered PDF
Archived
June 14, 2010, at the
Wayback Machine
format)
The Crime of Poverty
by Henry George
Centro Educativo Internacional Henry George (Managua, Nicaragua), in Spanish
The Economics of Henry George's "Progress and Poverty", by Edgar H. Johnson, 1910