Henry George
Henry George
Henry Georgewas an American political economist, journalist, and philosopher. George is famous for popularizing the idea that land/resource rents be captured for public use or shared, in lieu of harmful taxes on labor and productive investment. The philosophy and reform movement were known in George's time as 'Single-Tax'. His immensely popular writing is credited with sparking several reform movements of the Progressive Era and ultimately inspiring the broad economic philosophy that is today often referred to as Georgism, the main...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth2 September 1839
CountryUnited States of America
We have made, and still are making, enormous advances on material lines. It is necessary that we commensurately advance on moral lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brotherhood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit.
Passing into higher forms of desire, that which slumbered in the plant, and fitfully stirred in the beast, awakes in the man.
It is as to whether its services or uses are to be exchanged or not which makes a tool an article of capital or merely an article of wealth. Thus, the lathe of a manufacturer used in making things which are to be exchanged is capital, while the lathe kept by a gentleman for his own amusement is not.
Compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions.
For every social wrong there must be a remedy. But the remedy can be nothing less than the abolition of the wrong.
Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.
The great work of the present for every man, and every organization of men, who would improve social conditions, is the work of education the propagation of ideas. It is only as it aids this that anything else can avail. And in this work every one who can think may aid first by forming clear ideas himself, and then by endeavoring to arouse the thought of those with whom he comes in contact.
Discovery can give no right of ownership, for whatever is discovered must have been already here to be discovered. If a man makes a wheelbarrow, or a book, or a picture, he has a moral right to that particular wheelbarrow, or book, or picture, but no right to ask that others be prevented from making similar things. Such a prohibition, though given for the purpose of stimulating discovery and invention, really in the long run operates as a check upon them.
The man who gives me employment, which I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me call him what I will.
There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived from the title of the producer and does not rest upon the natural right of the man to himself.
No theory is too false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too degrading for acceptance when it has become embedded in common belief. Men will submit themselves to torture and to death, mothers will immolate [burn] their children at the bidding of beliefs they thus accept.
That amid our highest civilization men faint and die with want is not due to the niggardliness of nature, but to the injustice of man.
How can a man be said to have a country when he has not right of a square inch of it.
I propose to beg no question to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow truth wherever it may lead.