| Progress And Poverty |
Article Index for Progress And |
Website Links For Progress |
Information AboutProgress And Poverty |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PROGRESS AND POVERTY | |
| 1879 books | |
|
''Progress and Poverty'' was written by Henry George in 1879 . The book is a Treatise on the Cyclical nature of an industrial Economy and its remedies. George saw how technological and social advances (including education and public services) increased the value of land (natural resources, urban locations, etc)and, thus, the amount of wealth that can be demanded by the owners of land from those (everyone else!) who need the use of land. The tendency of speculators to increase the price of land faster than wealth can be produced to pay has the result of lowering the amount of wealth left over for labor to claim in wages, and finally leads to the collapse of enterprises at the margin, with a ripple effect that becomes a serious business depression entailing widespread unemployment, foreclosures, etc. In ''Progress and Poverty'', George examines various proposed strategies to prevent business depressions, unemployment and poverty, but finds them wanting. As an alternative he proposes his own solution: a Single Tax On Land Values . This would be a tax on the annual value of land held as private property. It would be high enough to allow for all other taxes -- especially upon labor and production -- to be abolished. George argued that a land value tax would give landowners an incentive to use the land in a productive way, thereby employing labor and creating wealth, or to sell the land at affordable prices to those who would themselves us the land in a productive way. This shift in the bargaining balance between resource owners and laborers would raise the general level of wages and ensure no one need suffer involuntary poverty. Soon after its publication, over three million copies of ''Progress and Poverty'' were bought by Americans eager to learn about the atrocities of the nascent industrial order. It was rapidly translated into many European and Asian languages and its author became famous around the world. Several international speaking tours and several books later, George died suddenly in 1897 on the eve of his second run for mayor of New York City. His world-wide reform movement has since dwindled yet managed to survive into the twenty-first century and remains active in various countries today. EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|