Progress and Poverty
By Henry George
Progress and Poverty seeks to explain why poverty is virtually unknown in primitive societies but widespread wherever there is great wealth.
George saw how technological and social advances (including education and public services) increased the value of land (natural resources, urban locations, etc) and, thus, the amount of wealth that can be demanded by the owners of land from those who need the use of land. In other words: the better the public services, the higher the rent is (as more people value that land).The tendency of speculators to increase the price of land faster than wealth can be produced to pay has the result of lowering the amount of wealth left over for labor to claim in wages, and finally leads to the collapse of enterprises at the margin, with a ripple effect that becomes a serious business depression entailing widespread unemployment, foreclosures, etc.
In Progress and Poverty, George examines various proposed strategies to prevent business depressions, unemployment and poverty, but finds them unsatisfactory. As an alternative he proposes his own solution: a single tax on land values. This would be a tax on the annual value of land held as private property. It would be high enough to allow for all other taxes — especially upon labor and production — to be abolished. George argued that a land value tax would give landowners an incentive to use the land in a productive way, thereby employing labor and creating wealth, or to sell the land at affordable prices to those who would themselves use the land in a productive way. This shift in the bargaining balance between resource owners and laborers would raise the general level of wages and ensure no one need suffer involuntary poverty.
Soon after its publication, over three million copies of Progress and Poverty were bought.
Author Henry George
Paperback 616 pp. 2003 (orig. 1879)
ISBN 0-911312-58-7
Publisher: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
Progress and Poverty
By Henry George
Abridged and Edited by Bob Drake
Why There Are Recessions And Poverty Amid Plenty
- And What To Do About It!
One of the world’s best-selling books on political economy edited and abridged for modern readers.
Many economists and politicians foster the illusion that great fortunes and poverty stem from the presence or absence of individual skill and risk-taking. Henry George, by contrast, showed that the wealth gap occurs because a few people are allowed to monopolize natural opportunities and deny them to others. George did not advocate equality of income, the forcible redistribution of wealth, or government management of the economy. He simply believed that in a society not burdened by the demands of a privileged elite, a full and satisfying life would be attainable by everyone.
Abridged and Edited by Bob Drake
Paperback 325 pp. 2006
ISBN 0-911312-98-6
Publisher: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
Also available:
Understanding Economics: The study guide for the Drake edition of Progress and Poverty
Understanding Economics: Teacher’s Manual
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