Henry George Quotes
The methods by which a trade union can alone act are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.
Henry George, 1839-1897, Political economist, Unsuccessful Candidate for New York Mayor, Progress and Poverty
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ironically, this view was also held by many of the capitalist “Captains of American Industry” who believed that all unions were revolutionist regardless of the views of the union’s membership or leadership. Even today, there are some who still equate trade unionism with communism and revolution. The majority of the unions and the left never believed that, but the extreme communists and extreme capitalists did than and some do today.
This was praise indeed as Wellman was generally very conservative.
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.
