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  This Memorial Edition of the Writings of
  Henry George is limited to one thousand
  numbered copies, of which this is

  No. 4




  MEMORIAL EDITION
  OF THE WRITINGS
  OF HENRY GEORGE

  VOL. I.




Make for thyself a definition or description of the thing which is
presented to thee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is,
in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell
thyself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has
been compounded, and into which it will be resolved. For nothing is so
productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically
and truly every object which is presented to thee in life, and always
to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe
this is, and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value
everything has with reference to the whole, and what with reference to
man, who is a citizen of the highest city, of which all other cities
are like families; what each thing is, and of what it is composed, and
how long it is the nature of this thing to endure.—_Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus._


[Illustration: _Henry George when writing “Progress and Poverty” San
Francisco, 1879_]




  THE WRITINGS OF
  HENRY GEORGE


  PROGRESS AND
  POVERTY

  AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL
  DEPRESSIONS AND OF INCREASE
  OF WANT WITH INCREASE OF WEALTH

  THE REMEDY

  I

  [Illustration: Colophon]


  NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY
  AND MCCLURE COMPANY
  1898




  Copyright, 1891, by
  HENRY GEORGE

  THE DE VINNE PRESS.




  TO THOSE WHO,
  SEEING THE VICE AND MISERY THAT SPRING FROM
  THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION
  OF WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE,
  FEEL THE POSSIBILITY OF A HIGHER SOCIAL STATE
  AND WOULD STRIVE FOR ITS ATTAINMENT

  SAN FRANCISCO, March, 1879.




            There must be refuge! Men
    Perished in winter winds till one smote fire
    From flint stones coldly hiding what they held,
    The red spark treasured from the kindling sun;
    They gorged on flesh like wolves, till one sowed corn,
    Which grew a weed, yet makes the life of man;
    They mowed and babbled till some tongue struck speech,
    And patient fingers framed the lettered sound.
    What good gift have my brothers, but it came
    From search and strife and loving sacrifice?

    _Edwin Arnold._

                    Never yet
    Share of Truth was vainly set
      In the world’s wide fallow;
    After hands shall sow the seed,
      After hands, from hill and mead,
    Reap the harvests yellow.

    _Whittier._




PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION.


The views herein set forth were in the main briefly stated in a
pamphlet entitled “Our Land and Land Policy,” published in San
Francisco in 1871. I then intended, as soon as I could, to present them
more fully, but the opportunity did not for a long time occur. In the
meanwhile I became even more firmly convinced of their truth, and saw
more completely and clearly their relations; and I also saw how many
false ideas and erroneous habits of thought stood in the way of their
recognition, and how necessary it was to go over the whole ground.

This I have here tried to do, as thoroughly as space would permit. It
has been necessary for me to clear away before I could build up, and
to write at once for those who have made no previous study of such
subjects, and for those who are familiar with economic reasonings;
and, so great is the scope of the argument that it has been impossible
to treat with the fullness they deserve many of the questions raised.
What I have most endeavored to do is to establish general principles,
trusting to my readers to carry further their applications where this
is needed.

In certain respects this book will be best appreciated by those who
have some knowledge of economic literature; but no previous reading
is necessary to the understanding of the argument or the passing of
judgment upon its conclusions. The facts upon which I have relied are
not facts which can be verified only by a search through libraries.
They are facts of common observation and common knowledge, which every
reader can verify for himself, just as he can decide whether the
reasoning from them is or is not valid.

Beginning with a brief statement of facts which suggest this inquiry,
I proceed to examine the explanation currently given in the name of
political economy of the reason why, in spite of the increase of
productive power, wages tend to the minimum of a bare living. This
examination shows that the current doctrine of wages is founded upon
a misconception; that, in truth, wages are produced by the labor for
which they are paid, and should, other things being equal, increase
with the number of laborers. Here the inquiry meets a doctrine which
is the foundation and center of most important economic theories,
and which has powerfully influenced thought in all directions—the
Malthusian doctrine, that population tends to increase faster than
subsistence. Examination, however, shows that this doctrine has no
real support either in fact or in analogy, and that when brought to a
decisive test it is utterly disproved.

Thus far the results of the inquiry, though extremely important, are
mainly negative. They show that current theories do not satisfactorily
explain the connection of poverty with material progress, but throw
no light upon the problem itself, beyond showing that its solution
must be sought in the laws which govern the distribution of wealth.
It therefore becomes necessary to carry the inquiry into this field.
A preliminary review shows that the three laws of distribution must
necessarily correlate with each other, which as laid down by the
current political economy they fail to do, and an examination of the
terminology in use reveals the confusion of thought by which this
discrepancy has been slurred over. Proceeding then to work out the laws
of distribution, I first take up the law of rent. This, it is readily
seen, is correctly apprehended by the current political economy. But it
is also seen that the full scope of this law has not been appreciated,
and that it involves as corollaries the laws of wages and interest—the
cause which determines what part of the produce shall go to the land
owner necessarily determining what part shall be left for labor and
capital. Without resting here, I proceed to an independent deduction
of the laws of interest and wages. I have stopped to determine the
real cause and justification of interest, and to point out a source of
much misconception—the confounding of what are really the profits of
monopoly with the legitimate earnings of capital. Then returning to the
main inquiry, investigation shows that interest must rise and fall with
wages, and depends ultimately upon the same thing as rent—the margin
of cultivation or point in production where rent begins. A similar but
independent investigation of the law of wages yields similar harmonious
results. Thus the three laws of distribution are brought into mutual
support and harmony, and the fact that with material progress rent
everywhere advances is seen to explain the fact that wages and interest
do not advance.

What causes this advance of rent is the next question that arises,
and it necessitates an examination of the effect of material progress
upon the distribution of wealth. Separating the factors of material
progress into increase of population and improvements in the arts,
it is first seen that increase in population tends constantly, not
merely by reducing the margin of cultivation, but by localizing the
economies and powers which come with increased population, to increase
the proportion of the aggregate produce which is taken in rent, and to
reduce that which goes as wages and interest. Then eliminating increase
of population, it is seen that improvement in the methods and powers of
production tends in the same direction, and, land being held as private
property, would produce in a stationary population all the effects
attributed by the Malthusian doctrine to pressure of population.
And then a consideration of the effects of the continuous increase
in land values which thus spring from material progress reveals in
the speculative advance inevitably begotten when land is private
property a derivative but most powerful cause of the increase of rent
and the crowding down of wages. Deduction shows that this cause must
necessarily produce periodical industrial depressions, and induction
proves the conclusion; while from the analysis which has thus been made
it is seen that the necessary result of material progress, land being
private property, is, no matter what the increase in population, to
force laborers to wages which give but a bare living.

This identification of the cause that associates poverty with progress
points to the remedy, but it is to so radical a remedy that I have
next deemed it necessary to inquire whether there is any other remedy.
Beginning the investigation again from another starting point, I have
passed in examination the measures and tendencies currently advocated
or trusted in for the improvement of the condition of the laboring
masses. The result of this investigation is to prove the preceding
one, as it shows that nothing short of making land common property can
permanently relieve poverty and check the tendency of wages to the
starvation point.

The question of justice now naturally arises, and the inquiry passes
into the field of ethics. An investigation of the nature and basis
of property shows that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable
difference between property in things which are the product of labor
and property in land; that the one has a natural basis and sanction
while the other has none, and that the recognition of exclusive
property in land is necessarily a denial of the right of property
in the products of labor. Further investigation shows that private
property in land always has, and always must, as development proceeds,
lead to the enslavement of the laboring class; that land owners can
make no just claim to compensation if society choose to resume its
right; that so far from private property in land being in accordance
with the natural perceptions of men, the very reverse is true, and
that in the United States we are already beginning to feel the effects
of having admitted this erroneous and destructive principle.

The inquiry then passes to the field of practical statesmanship. It
is seen that private property in land, instead of being necessary to
its improvement and use, stands in the way of improvement and use, and
entails an enormous waste of productive forces; that the recognition
of the common right to land involves no shock or dispossession, but is
to be reached by the simple and easy method of abolishing all taxation
save that upon land values. And this an inquiry into the principles of
taxation shows to be, in all respects, the best subject of taxation.

A consideration of the effects of the change proposed then shows that
it would enormously increase production; would secure justice in
distribution; would benefit all classes; and would make possible an
advance to a higher and nobler civilization.

The inquiry now rises to a wider field, and recommences from another
starting point. For not only do the hopes which have been raised
come into collision with the widespread idea that social progress is
possible only by slow race improvement, but the conclusions we have
arrived at assert certain laws which, if they are really natural laws,
must be manifest in universal history. As a final test, it therefore
becomes necessary to work out the law of human progress, for certain
great facts which force themselves on our attention, as soon as we
begin to consider this subject, seem utterly inconsistent with what
is now the current theory. This inquiry shows that differences in
civilization are not due to differences in individuals, but rather
to differences in social organization; that progress, always kindled
by association, always passes into retrogression as inequality is
developed; and that even now, in modern civilization, the causes which
have destroyed all previous civilizations are beginning to manifest
themselves, and that mere political democracy is running its course
toward anarchy and despotism. But it also identifies the law of social
life with the great moral law of justice, and, proving previous
conclusions, shows how retrogression may be prevented and a grander
advance begun. This ends the inquiry. The final chapter will explain
itself.

The great importance of this inquiry will be obvious. If it has been
carefully and logically pursued, its conclusions completely change the
character of political economy, give it the coherence and certitude of
a true science, and bring it into full sympathy with the aspirations of
the masses of men, from which it has long been estranged. What I have
done in this book, if I have correctly solved the great problem I have
sought to investigate, is, to unite the truth perceived by the school
of Smith and Ricardo to the truth perceived by the schools of Proudhon
and Lasalle; to show that _laissez faire_ (in its full true meaning)
opens the way to a realization of the noble dreams of socialism; to
identify social law with moral law, and to disprove ideas which in the
minds of many cloud grand and elevating perceptions.

This work was written between August, 1877, and March, 1879, and
the plates finished by September of that year. Since that time new
illustrations have been given of the correctness of the views herein
advanced, and the march of events—and especially that great movement
which has begun in Great Britain in the Irish land agitation—shows
still more clearly the pressing nature of the problem I have endeavored
to solve. But there has been nothing in the criticisms they have
received to induce the change or modification of these views—in fact,
I have yet to see an objection not answered in advance in the book
itself. And except that some verbal errors have been corrected and a
preface added, this edition is the same as previous ones.

  HENRY GEORGE.
  NEW YORK, _November_, 1880.




CONTENTS.


  INTRODUCTORY.

                                                                   PAGE

  The Problem                                                          3


  BOOK I.—WAGES AND CAPITAL.

  Chapter I.—The current doctrine of wages—its insufficiency          17

         II.—The meaning of the terms                                 30

        III.—Wages not drawn from capital, but produced by the labor  49

         IV.—The maintenance of laborers not drawn from capital       70

          V.—The real functions of capital                            79


  BOOK II.—POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.

  Chapter I.—The Malthusian theory, its genesis and support           91

         II.—Inferences from facts                                   103

        III.—Inferences from analogy                                 129

         IV.—Disproof of the Malthusian theory                       140


  BOOK III.—THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION.

  Chapter I.—The inquiry narrowed to the laws of
             distribution—necessary  relation of these laws          153

         II.—Rent and the law of rent                                165

        III.—Interest and the cause of interest                      173

         IV.—Of spurious capital and of profits often mistaken
             for interest                                            189

          V.—The law of interest                                     195

         VI.—Wages and the law of wages                              204

        VII.—Correlation and co-ordination of these laws             217

       VIII.—The statics of the problem thus explained               219


  BOOK IV.—EFFECT OF MATERIAL PROGRESS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

  Chapter I.—The dynamics of the problem yet to seek                 225

         II.—Effect of increase of population upon the distribution
             of wealth                                               228

        III.—Effect of improvements in the arts upon the
             distribution of wealth                                  242

         IV.—Effect of the expectation raised by material progress   253


  BOOK V.—THE PROBLEM SOLVED.

  Chapter I.—The primary cause of recurring paroxysms of industrial
             depression                                              261

         II.—The persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth        280


  BOOK VI.—THE REMEDY.

  Chapter I.—Insufficiency of remedies currently advocated           297

         II.—The true remedy                                         326


  BOOK VII.—JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY.

  Chapter I.—Injustice of private property in land                   331

         II.—Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result of
             private property in land                                345

        III.—Claim of land owners to compensation                    356

         IV.—Property in land historically considered                366

          V.—Property in land in the United States                   383


  BOOK VIII.—APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY.

  Chapter I.—Private property in land inconsistent with the best
             use of land                                             395

         II.—How equal rights to the land may be asserted and
             secured                                                 401

        III.—The proposition tried by the canons of taxation         406

         IV.—Indorsements and objections                             420


  BOOK IX.—EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY.

  Chapter I.—Of the effect upon the production of wealth             431

         II.—Of the effect upon distribution and thence upon
             production                                              438

        III.—Of the effect upon individuals and classes              445

         IV.—Of the changes that would be wrought in social
             organization and social life                            452


  BOOK X.—THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

  Chapter I.—The current theory of human progress—its insufficiency  473

         II.—Differences in civilization—to what due                 487

        III.—The law of human progress                               503

         IV.—How modern civilization may decline                     524

          V.—The central truth                                       541


  CONCLUSION.

  The problem of individual life                                     553




INTRODUCTORY.


THE PROBLEM.




    Ye build! ye build! but ye enter not in,
    Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;
    From the land of promise ye fade and die,
    Ere its verdure gleams forth on your wearied eye.

    _—Mrs. Sigourney._




INTRODUCTORY.


THE PROBLEM.

The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in
wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam and electricity, the
introduction of improved processes and labor-saving machinery, the
greater subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful
facilitation of exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness
of labor.

At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and
it was expected, that labor-saving inventions would lighten the toil
and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in
the power of producing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the
past. Could a man of the last century—a Franklin or a Priestley—have
seen, in a vision of the future, the steamship taking the place of the
sailing vessel, the railroad train of the wagon, the reaping machine
of the scythe, the threshing machine of the flail; could he have heard
the throb of the engines that in obedience to human will, and for the
satisfaction of human desire, exert a power greater than that of all
the men and all the beasts of burden of the earth combined; could he
have seen the forest tree transformed into finished lumber—into doors,
sashes, blinds, boxes or barrels, with hardly the touch of a human
hand; the great workshops where boots and shoes are turned out by the
case with less labor than the old-fashioned cobbler could have put on
a sole; the factories where, under the eye of a girl, cotton becomes
cloth faster than hundreds of stalwart weavers could have turned it out
with their handlooms; could he have seen steam hammers shaping mammoth
shafts and mighty anchors, and delicate machinery making tiny watches;
the diamond drill cutting through the heart of the rocks, and coal oil
sparing the whale; could he have realized the enormous saving of labor
resulting from improved facilities of exchange and communication—sheep
killed in Australia eaten fresh in England, and the order given by the
London banker in the afternoon executed in San Francisco in the morning
of the same day; could he have conceived of the hundred thousand
improvements which these only suggest, what would he have inferred as
to the social condition of mankind?

It would not have seemed like an inference; further than the vision
went it would have seemed as though he saw; and his heart would have
leaped and his nerves would have thrilled, as one who from a height
beholds just ahead of the thirst-stricken caravan the living gleam of
rustling woods and the glint of laughing waters. Plainly, in the sight
of the imagination, he would have beheld these new forces elevating
society from its very foundations, lifting the very poorest above the
possibility of want, exempting the very lowest from anxiety for the
material needs of life; he would have seen these slaves of the lamp of
knowledge taking on themselves the traditional curse, these muscles of
iron and sinews of steel making the poorest laborer’s life a holiday,
in which every high quality and noble impulse could have scope to grow.

And out of these bounteous material conditions he would have seen
arising, as necessary sequences, moral conditions realizing the golden
age of which mankind have always dreamed. Youth no longer stunted and
starved; age no longer harried by avarice; the child at play with the
tiger; the man with the muck-rake drinking in the glory of the stars!
Foul things fled, fierce things tame; discord turned to harmony! For
how could there be greed where all had enough? How could the vice, the
crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and the
fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished? Who should crouch
where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?

More or less vague or clear, these have been the hopes, these the
dreams born of the improvements which give this wonderful century
its preëminence. They have sunk so deeply into the popular mind as
radically to change the currents of thought, to recast creeds and
displace the most fundamental conceptions. The haunting visions of
higher possibilities have not merely gathered splendor and vividness,
but their direction has changed—instead of seeing behind the faint
tinges of an expiring sunset, all the glory of the daybreak has decked
the skies before.

It is true that disappointment has followed disappointment, and that
discovery upon discovery, and invention after invention, have neither
lessened the toil of those who most need respite, nor brought plenty to
the poor. But there have been so many things to which it seemed this
failure could be laid, that up to our time the new faith has hardly
weakened. We have better appreciated the difficulties to be overcome;
but not the less trusted that the tendency of the times was to overcome
them.

Now, however, we are coming into collision with facts which there can
be no mistaking. From all parts of the civilized world come complaints
of industrial depression; of labor condemned to involuntary idleness;
of capital massed and wasting; of pecuniary distress among business
men; of want and suffering and anxiety among the working classes. All
the dull, deadening pain, all the keen, maddening anguish, that to
great masses of men are involved in the words “hard times,” afflict
the world to-day. This state of things, common to communities differing
so widely in situation, in political institutions, in fiscal and
financial systems, in density of population and in social organization,
can hardly be accounted for by local causes. There is distress where
large standing armies are maintained, but there is also distress where
the standing armies are nominal; there is distress where protective
tariffs stupidly and wastefully hamper trade, but there is also
distress where trade is nearly free; there is distress where autocratic
government yet prevails, but there is also distress where political
power is wholly in the hands of the people; in countries where paper is
money, and in countries where gold and silver are the only currency.
Evidently, beneath all such things as these, we must infer a common
cause.

That there is a common cause, and that it is either what we call
material progress or something closely connected with material
progress, becomes more than an inference when it is noted that the
phenomena we class together and speak of as industrial depression are
but intensifications of phenomena which always accompany material
progress, and which show themselves more clearly and strongly as
material progress goes on. Where the conditions to which material
progress everywhere tends are most fully realized—that is to say, where
population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of production
and exchange most highly developed—we find the deepest poverty, the
sharpest struggle for existence, and the most of enforced idleness.

It is to the newer countries—that is, to the countries where material
progress is yet in its earlier stages—that laborers emigrate in search
of higher wages, and capital flows in search of higher interest. It is
in the older countries—that is to say, the countries where material
progress has reached later stages—that widespread destitution is
found in the midst of the greatest abundance. Go into one of the new
communities where Anglo-Saxon vigor is just beginning the race of
progress; where the machinery of production and exchange is yet rude
and inefficient; where the increment of wealth is not yet great enough
to enable any class to live in ease and luxury; where the best house is
but a cabin of logs or a cloth and paper shanty, and the richest man is
forced to daily work—and though you will find an absence