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
Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes.
Social progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business of each.
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.
Private ownership of land is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill-stone. Between them, with an increasing pressure, the working classes are being ground.
Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow.
A good, very good, not to say admirable schoolmaster, but then he is only a schoolmaster.
The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.
The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt.
It is but a truism that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.
That alone is wise which is just; that alone is enduring which is right.
Abolish all taxation save that upon land values.
How many men are there who fairly earn a million dollars?
Property in land is as indefensible as property in man.
The tolerance of wrong dulls our sense of its injustice. Men may become accustomed to theft, murder, even to slavery - that sum of all villainies - so they see no injustice in it, yet that which is unjust is unjust still.