Henry George Quotes


As it becomes more and more difficult to get land, so will the virtual enslavement of the laboring-classe s go on. As the value of land rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will be demanded for the use of land, until finally nothing is left to laborers but the wages of slavery -- a bare living.


Citations

George, Henry. Social Problems. Belford, Clarke & Co., 1883, p. 195.

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At the time, it did seem impossible that labor and capital would ever have harmonious relations. But the notion that slavery would solve the problem is as preposterous as anything ever entered into the American political dialogue. But there were many in the South, and some in the North, who actually believed it. Even 150 years later, while labor and capital relations were much better than pre Civil War, they still could not be described as “harmonious” or “friendly”.


Henry George
Henry George
  • Born: September 2, 1839
  • Died: October 29, 1897
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Economist

Henry George was an American political economist 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 derived from land (including natural resources) should belong equally to all members of society. He argued that a single tax on land would create a more productive, more just society.