Progress and Poverty by Henry George (most important books of all time txt) 📕

have refused their assent to it, except from not having thoroughly understood it. The loose and inaccurate way in which it is often apprehended by those who affect to refute it is very remarkable.” An observation which has received many later exemplifications. ↩

According to McCulloch the law of rent was first stated in a pamphlet by Dr. James Anderson of Edinburgh in 1777, and simultaneously in the beginning of this century by Sir Edward West, Mr. Malthus, and Mr. Ricardo. ↩

Buckle (Chap. II., History of Civilization) recognizes the necessary relation between rent, interest, and wages, but evidently never worked it out. ↩

This is really said of profits, but with the evident meaning of returns to capital. ↩

This equalization will be effected by the equation of prices. ↩

This last, which is analogous to the element of risk in profits, accounts for the high wages of successful lawyers, physicians, contractors, actors, etc. ↩

As to this, it may be worth while to say: (1) That the general fact, as shown by the progress of agriculture in the newer States of the Union and by the character of the land left out of cultivation in the older, is that the course of cultivation is from the better to the worse qualities of land. (2) That, whether the course of production be from the absolutely better to the absolutely worse lands or the reverse (and there is much to indicate that better or worse in this connection merely relates to our knowledge, and that future advances may discover compensating qualities in portions of the earth now esteemed most sterile), it is always, and from the nature of the human mind, must always tend to be, from land under existing conditions deemed better, to land under existing conditions deemed worse. (3) That Ricardo’s law of rent does not depend upon the direction of the extension of cultivation, but upon the proposition that if land of a certain quality will yield something, land of a better quality will yield more. ↩

“The Subsidy Question and the Democratic Party,” 1871. ↩

It is astonishing how in a new country of great expectations speculative prices of land will be kept up. It is common to hear the expression, “There is no market for real estate; you cannot sell it at any price,” and yet, at the same time, if you go to buy it, unless you find somebody who is absolutely compelled to sell, you must pay the prices that prevailed when speculation ran high. For owners, believing that land values must ultimately advance, hold on as long as they can. ↩

This was written a year ago. It is now (July, 1879) evident that a new period of activity has commenced, as above predicted, and in New York and Chicago real estate prices have already begun to recover. ↩

Systems of Land Tenure, published by the Cobden Club. ↩

To say nothing of superior want of conscience, which is often the determining quality which makes a millionaire out of one who otherwise might have been a poor man. ↩

Franklin, in his inimitable way, relates how Keimer finally broke his resolution and ordering a roast pig invited two lady friends to dine with him, but the pig being brought in before the company arrived, Keimer could not resist the temptation and ate it all himself. ↩

In saying that private property in land can, in the ultimate analysis, be justified only on the theory that some men have a better right to existence than others, I am stating only what the advocates of the existing system have themselves perceived. What gave to Malthus his popularity among the ruling classes⁠—what caused his illogical book to be received as a new revelation, induced sovereigns to send him decorations, and the meanest rich man in England to propose to give him a living, was the fact that he furnished a plausible reason for the assumption that some have a better right to existence than others⁠—an assumption which is necessary for the justification of private property in land, and which Malthus clearly states in the declaration that the tendency of population is constantly to bring into the world human beings for whom nature refuses to provide, and who consequently “have not the slightest right to any share in the existing store of the necessaries of life;” whom she tells as interlopers to begone, “and does not hesitate to extort by force obedience to her mandates,” employing for that purpose “hunger and pestilence, war and crime, mortality and neglect of infantine life, prostitution and syphilis.” And today this Malthusian doctrine is the ultimate defense upon which those who justify private property in land fall back. In no other way can it be logically defended. ↩

This natural and inalienable right to the equal use and enjoyment of land is so apparent that it has been recognized by men wherever force or habit has not blunted first perceptions. To give but one instance: The white settlers of New Zealand found themselves unable to get from the Maoris what the latter considered a complete title to land, because, although a whole tribe might have consented to a sale, they would still claim with every new child born among them an additional payment on the ground that they had parted with only their own rights, and could not sell those of the unborn. The government was obliged to step in and settle the matter by buying land for a tribal annuity, in which every child that is born acquires a share. ↩

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