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| − | [[Category:Politicians and reformers]]
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| − | {{epname|George, Henry}}
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| − | [[Image:George.gif|thumb|200px|right|Henry George]]
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| − | '''Henry George''' (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an [[United States|American]], [[journalism|journalist]], reformist, and [[political economy|political economist]]. Although he had no formal academic training, his economic analyses stimulated reform. His writings, particularly his advocacy of the "[[land value tax|single tax]]" on land, coupled with his public lecture tours, made him quite famous. George's motivation was to address the problem of [[poverty]] that seemed to accompany economic development, and he approached this both by his theory of [[taxation]], and through his attempts to run for political office, which proved unsuccessful. Influenced by [[Socialism|socialist]] ideas, he believed that the [[government]] should operate [[social welfare]] programs for the benefit of those in need, and that his proposed land tax would be sufficient to fund them. While George's ideas failed to address all the complexities of human social dynamics, his legacy endures in various organizations, particularly those concerned with [[environmentalism]].
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| − | == Life ==
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| − | Henry George was born in [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], into a lower-middle-class family. He left school in his mid-teens to be able to travel around the world. In April 1855, at the age of 15, he visited [[India]] and [[Australia]]. The two countries, especially the life of the people there, left a strong impression that was visible in the formulation of his theories.
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| − | After returning home to Philadelphia, he worked for some time as an apprentice typesetter, but eventually decided to move and settle in [[California]]. He dreamed of getting rich in the [[California Gold Rush]], but his plans did not work out. Instead, he found a job as a typesetter.
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| − | In 1861, he married Australian-born Annie Corsina Fox, and the couple had two sons. The family was in debt and lived in [[poverty]]. George accepted a job as a [[journalism|journalist]] and started to work his way up through the [[newspaper]] industry. He worked as a printer, then a writer for the ''San Francisco Times.'' After that he became a reporter for the ''San Francisco Daily Evening Post,'' finally becoming an editor and proprietor. His articles dealt with the treatment of [[China|Chinese]] [[immigration|immigrants]], ownership of the land, and the [[railroad]] industry.
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| − | With time, George was able to build a reputation as a journalist, and soon engaged in local [[politics]]. He shifted his loyalty from [[Abraham Lincoln]]’s [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] to the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]], and became involved with social [[activism]]. He criticized the railroad industry and [[corruption]] in [[government]]. He ran as a Democratic candidate for the state legislature, but failed. He then worked as a state inspector of gas meters.
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| − | In 1871, he published a pamphlet, ''Our Land and Land Policy,'' in which he presented for the first time his theory of [[rent]] as the primary cause of [[poverty]]. In 1879, he wrote his masterwork ''Progress and Poverty,'' which made him world famous.
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| − | In 1880, George and his family moved to [[New York City]], where he spent time writing and lecturing. He became acquainted with the Irish nationalist community, and was invited to [[Ireland]] and [[England]] by the radical ''Irish World'' to study the land problem. He spent one year there, from 1881 to 1882, and formed a friendship with figures such as [[Michael Davitt]] and other leaders of the Irish Land League. He also met many English socialists and radicals, such as [[Henry Mayers Hyndman]] and Helen Taylor. The visit was a total success, and George received strong support to run for the mayor of New York City in 1886. He ended up second, behind [[Abram Stevens Hewitt]] and ahead of [[Theodore Roosevelt]].
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| − | During this period, George produced works such as ''Protection or Free Trade'' (1886), ''A Condition of Labor: An Open Letter to the Pope'' (1891), and ''A Perplexed Philosopher'' (1892). He visited [[United Kingdom|Britain]] again in 1888 and 1889, and [[Australia]] and [[New Zealand]] in 1890. He was known as a great lecturer.
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| − | In 1897, he was persuaded to run again for the mayor of the New York City, but suffered a [[stroke]] and died just four days before the election. An estimated 100,000 people attended his funeral.
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| − | ==Work==
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| − | Henry George was perplexed by the apparent paradox that the poor in the long-established city of [[New York City|New York]] lived under much worse conditions than the poor in less-developed [[California]]. This paradox supplied the theme and title for his 1879 book ''Progress and Poverty.'' George made the argument that a sizeable portion of the wealth created by social and technological advances in a [[free market]] economy is captured by land owners and [[monopoly|monopolists]] via [[rent]], and that this concentration of unearned wealth is the root 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 [[tax]]es, and held that such a system was equivalent to [[slavery]], a concept somewhat similar to wage slavery.
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| − | The appropriation of [[oil]] [[royalties]] by magnates of [[petroleum]]-rich countries may be seen as an equivalent form of rent-seeking activity; since natural resources are given freely by nature rather than being products of human [[labor]] or [[entrepreneur]]ship, no single individual should be allowed to acquire unearned revenues by monopolizing their [[commerce]]. The same holds true for every other [[mineral]] and biological raw resource.
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| − | 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 pushing up land values and rents as fast as or faster than [[wages]] were rising.
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| − | Based on his observations, Henry George became a strong proponent of the "[[land value tax|single tax]]" on land, based on the unimproved value of the land, which is the value that the land would have in its natural state. This idea of George's was not new, but based on [[David Ricardo]]'s theory of rent. George, however, suggested that the tax levied on unimproved land would be sufficient to support all government programs.
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| − | Although best known for advocating the replacement of other taxes by "land value taxes," Henry George also formulated a comprehensive set of economic policies. He was highly critical of restrictive [[patent]]s and [[copyright]]s (though he amended his views on the latter when it was explained to him that copyrights do not constrain independent reinvention in the manner of patents). George advocated replacement of patents with government-supported incentives for invention and scientific investigation and dismantling of [[monopoly|monopolies]] when possible—and taxation or regulation of natural monopolies. Overall, he advocated a combination of unfettered [[free market]]s and significant [[social welfare]] programs made possible by economically efficient taxes on land rent and monopolies.
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| − | George also tried to explain the nature of [[interest]] and [[profit]]. He wrote:
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| − | <blockquote>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.</blockquote>
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| − | ===Criticisms===
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| − | George's theory drew its share of critiques. [[Austrian school]] [[economics|economist]] [[Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk]] expressed a negative judgment on George's ideas. Another spirited response came from British biologist [[Thomas 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 theory of interest is nowadays dismissed even by some otherwise Georgist authors, who see it as mistaken and irrelevant to his ideas about land and free trade.
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| − | The separation of the value of land into improved and unimproved is problematic in George's theory. Once construction has taken place, not only the land on which such improvements were made is affected, the value of neighboring, as yet unimproved, land is impacted. Thus, while the construction of a major attraction nearby may increase the value of land, the construction of factories or nuclear power plants decreases its value. Indeed, location is the single most important asset in [[real estate]].
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| − | George intended to propose a tax that would have the least negative impact on productive activity. However, even unimproved land turns out to be affected in value by productive activity in the neighborhood. Thus, his [[land value tax|single land tax]] could function as a disincentive to improvements on a piece of land, if a larger unimproved area of land then increased in value, resulting in a significant tax increase for the owner. Nevertheless, as [[Milton Friedman]] commented: "In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago."
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| − | ==Legacy==
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| − | George’s ideas were taken up to some degree in [[South Africa]], [[Taiwan]], [[Hong Kong]], and [[Australia]]—where state governments levy a [[land value tax]], albeit low and with many exemptions. An attempt by the Liberal Government of the day to implement his ideas in 1909 as part of the People's Budget caused a crisis in [[United Kingdom|Britain]], which led indirectly to reform of the House of Lords.
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| − | In his ''Freiwirtschaft,'' Silvio Gesell combined Henry George's ideas about land ownership and [[rent]]s with his own theory about the [[money]] system and [[interest]] rates and his successive development of ''Freigeld.'' In his last book, [[Martin Luther King]] referenced Henry George in support of a guaranteed minimum income. Many other influential people were themselves heavily influenced by George, such as [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[Leo Tolstoy]], and [[Herbert Simon]].
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| − | Henry George was also familiar with the work of [[Karl Marx]]—and predicted (accurately) that if Marx's ideas were tried, the likely result would be a [[dictatorship]].
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| − | Henry George's popularity declined in the twentieth century; however, many Georgist organizations continue to exist and many of his ideas continue to be influential. [[Environmentalism|Environmentalists]] have resonated 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. 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 enduringly popular "Monopoly."
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| − | ==Publications==
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| − | * George, Henry. [1871] 2006. ''Progress and Poverty.'' Cosimo Classics. ISBN 1596059516
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| − | * George, Henry. [1881] 2005. ''The Irish Land Question: What It Involves and How Alone It can be Settled.'' Adamant Media. ISBN 1402162790
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| − | * George, Henry. [1884] 2005. ''Social Problems.'' Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 1402198140
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| − | * George, Henry. [1886] 2006.. ''Protection or Free Trade.'' Obscure Press. ISBN 1846645735
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| − | * George, Henry. [1887] 1931. ''Justice the Object, Taxation the Means.'' United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values.
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| − | * George, Henry. [1891] 1930. ''The Condition of Labor: An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII.'' Henry George Foundation of Great Britain.
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| − | * George, Henry. [1892] 1988. ''A Perplexed Philosopher: An Examination of Herbert Spencer's Utterances on the Land Question.'' Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. ISBN 0911312803
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| − | * George, Henry. 1936. ''Why the Landowner cannot Shift the Tax on Land Values.'' United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values.
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| − | * George, Henry. 1950. ''Blood and Coal.'' Dorrance.
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| − | * George, Henry. 1992. ''The Science of Political Economy: A Reconstruction of Its Principles in Clear and Systematic Form.'' Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. ISBN 091131251X
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| − | * George, Henry. 2004. ''The Law of Human Progress.'' Athena Books. ISBN 1414700334
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| − | * George, Henry. 2006. ''The Carer.'' Vanguard Press. ISBN 1843862824
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| − | ==References==
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| − | * Andelson, Robert V. 2004. ''Critics of Henry George: Studies in Economic Reform and Social Justice.'' Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1405118296
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| − | * Barker, Charles A. 1991. ''Henry George.'' Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. ISBN 0911312854
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| − | * George, Henry, Jr. [1900] 2004. ''The Life of Henry George.'' University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 1410214559
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| − | * Hooper, Charles. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/George.html Biography of Henry George (1839–97).] ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.'' Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * Rose, Henry. 1891. ''New Political Economy: The Social Teaching of Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and Henry George; with Observations on Joseph Mazzini.'' Spiers.
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| − | * Wenzer, Kenneth C. 2002. ''Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Volume 20: Henry George's Writing's on the United Kingdom.'' Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0762307935
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| − | * Wenzer, Kenneth C. 2003. ''Henry George: Collected Journalistic Writings.'' M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 0765610663
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| − | ==External links==
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| − | *[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/George.html Biography of Henry George] – Short biography on the Library of Economics and Liberty website. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | *[http://www.urbantools.org/ The Center for the Study of Economics] – Lobby group that promotes the adoption of Land Value Taxation. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | *[http://fax.libs.uga.edu/HB171xG348c/ ''The Complete Works of Henry George''] – Online edition of the book. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | *[http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/georgecripov.html “The Crime of Poverty” (lecture) by Henry George] – Complete, free, definitive edition (published 1889). Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.us/ The Henry George Foundation of America] – Website of the Henry George Foundation. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.henrygeorge.org/ The Henry George Institute] – Website of the Henry George Institute. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/george.html Henry George Papers] – Biography and bibliography on the New York Public Library website. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.henrygeorgeschool.org The Henry George School of Social Science] – Website of the Henry George School. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.multiline.com.au/~georgist/econ1.htm Georgist Economic Philosophy] – Website of the Georgist Movement. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | *[http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP.html ''Progress and Poverty,'' by Henry George] – Complete, free, definitive edition (1912, first published 1879), on the Econlib website. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | *[http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPFT.html ''Protection or Free Trade,'' by Henry George] – Complete, free, definitive edition (1905, first published 1886), on the Econlib website. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | * [http://www.schalkenbach.org/who-was-henry.html Who Was Henry George?] – An article on George by Agnes George de Mille on the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation website. Retrieved May 18, 2007.
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| − | {{Credit1|Henry_George|88417259|}}
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