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Education
Henry George: The
Crime of Poverty (1885 speech)
Talk about improvement in the condition of the
working classes, when the facts are that a larger and
larger proportion of women and children are forced to
toil. Why, I am told that, even here in your own city,
there are children of thirteen and fourteen working in
factories. In Detroit, according to the report of the
Michigan Bureau of Labour Statistics, one half of the
children of school age do not go to school. In New
Jersey, the report made to the legislature discloses an
amount of misery and ignorance that is appalling.
Children are growing up there, compelled
to monotonous toil when they ought to be at play,
children who do not know how to play; children who have
been so long accustomed to work that they have become
used to it; children growing up in such ignorance that
they do not know what country New Jersey is in, that they
never heard of George Washington, that some of them think
Europe is in New York. Such facts
are appalling; they mean that the very foundations of the
Republic are being sapped. The dangerous man is not the
man who tries to excite discontent; the dangerous man is
the man who says that all is as it ought to be.
Such a state of things cannot continue; such tendencies
as we see at work here cannot go on without bringing at
last an overwhelming crash.
I say that all this poverty and the
ignorance that flows from it is unnecessary; I say that
there is no natural reason why we should not all be rich,
in the sense, not of having more than each other, but in
the sense of all having enough to completely satisfy all
physical wants; of all having enough to get such an easy
living that we could develop the better part of
humanity. There is no reason why wealth should not be
so abundant, that no one should think of such a thing as
little children at work, or a woman compelled to a toil
that nature never intended her to perform; wealth so
abundant that there would be no cause for that harassing
fear that sometimes paralyses even those who are not
considered "the poor," the fear that every man of us has
probably felt, that if sickness should smite him, or if
he should be taken away, those whom he loves better than
his life would become charges upon charity. "Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin." I believe that in a really
Christian community, in a society that honoured not with
the lips but with the act, the doctrines of Jesus, no one
would have occasion to worry about physical needs any
more than do the lilies of the field. There is enough and
to spare. The trouble is that, in this mad struggle, we
trample in the mire what has been provided in sufficiency
for us all; trample it in the mire while we tear and rend
each other. ... read the
whole speech
Henry George: Moses,
Apostle of Freedom (1878 speech)
We boast of equality before the law; yet
notoriously justice is deaf to the call of those who have
no gold and blind to the sin of those who have.
We pride ourselves upon our common
schools; yet after our boys and girls are educated we
vainly ask: "What shall we do with them?" And about our
colleges children are growing up in vice and crime, because
from their homes poverty has driven all refining
influences. We pin our faith to universal suffrage; yet
with all power in the hands of the people, the control of
public affairs is passing into the hands of a class of
professional politicians, and our governments are, in many
cases, becoming but a means for robbery of the
people.
We have prohibited hereditary
distinctions, we have forbidden titles of nobility; yet
there is growing up an aristocracy of wealth as powerful
and merciless as any that ever held sway. ... read the whole
speech Henry George: The Wages of Labor
The organisation of man is such, his relations to
the world in which he is placed are such – that is
to say, the immutable laws of God are such that it is
beyond the power of human ingenuity to devise any way by
which the evils born of the injustice that robs men of
their birthright can be removed otherwise than by opening
to all the bounty that God has provided for all!
Since man can live only on land and
from land since land is the reservoir of matter and force
from which man’s body itself is taken, and on which
he must draw for all that he can produce – does it
not irresistibly follow that to give the land in ownership
to some men and to deny to others all right to it is to
divide mankind into the rich and the poor, the privileged
and the helpless?
Does it not follow that those who have no rights
to the use of land can live only by selling their labor
to those who own the land?
Does it not follow that what the
Socialists call “the iron law of wages,” what
the political economists term “the tendency of wages
to a minimum,” must take from the landless mass of
mere laborers – who of themselves have no power to
use their labor – the benefits of any advance or
improvement that does not alter this unjust division of
land?
Having no Power to employ themselves,
they must, either as labor-sellers or land-renters, compete
with one another for permission to labor; and this competition with one another of men shut out
from God’s inexhaustible storehouse, must ultimately
force wages to their lowest point, the point at which life
can just be maintained.
This is not to say that all wages must fall to
this point, but that the wages of that necessarily
largest stratum of laborers who have only ordinary
knowledge, skill, and aptitude, must so fall. The wages
of special classes, who are fenced off from the pressure
of competition by peculiar knowledge, skill, or other
causes, may remain above that ordinary level.
Thus, where the
ability to read and write is rare its possession enables a
man to obtain higher wages than the ordinary
laborer. But as the diffusion of education makes the
ability to read and write general, this advantage is lost.
So, when a vocation requires special training or skill, or
is made difficult of access by artificial restrictions, the
checking of competition tends to keep wages in it at a
higher level. But as the progress of invention dispenses
with peculiar skill, or artificial restrictions are broken
dawn, these higher wages sink to the ordinary level. And
so, it is only so long as they are special that such
qualities as industry, prudence, and thrift can enable the
ordinary laborer to maintain a condition above that which
gives a mere living. Where they become general, the law of
competition must eventually reduce the earnings or savings
of such qualities to the general level. ...
read the whole
article
Henry George: The Condition of Labor
— An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to
Rerum Novarum (1891)
Since man can live only on land and from land, since
land is the reservoir of matter and force from which
man’s body itself is taken, and on which he must
draw for all that he can produce, does it not
irresistibly follow that to give the land in ownership to
some men and to deny to others all right to it is to
divide mankind into the rich and the poor, the privileged
and the helpless? Does it not follow that those who have
no rights to the use of land can live only by selling
their power to labor to those who own the land? Does it
not follow that what the socialists call “the iron
law of wages,” what the political economists term
“the tendency of wages to a minimum,” must
take from the landless masses — the mere laborers,
who of themselves have no power to use their labor
— all the benefits of any possible advance or
improvement that does not alter this unjust division of
land? For having no power to employ themselves, they
must, either as labor-sellers or as land-renters, compete
with one another for permission to labor. This
competition with one another of men shut out from
God’s inexhaustible storehouse has no limit but
starvation, and must ultimately force wages to their
lowest point, the point at which life can just be
maintained and reproduction carried on.
This is not to say that all wages must fall to this
point, but that the wages of that necessarily largest
stratum of laborers who have only ordinary knowledge,
skill and aptitude must so fall. The wages of special
classes, who are fenced off from the pressure of
competition by peculiar knowledge, skill or other causes,
may remain above that ordinary level. Thus, where
the ability to read and write is rare its possession
enables a man to obtain higher wages than the ordinary
laborer. But as the diffusion of education makes the
ability to read and write general this advantage is lost.
So when a vocation requires special training or skill, or
is made difficult of access by artificial restrictions,
the checking of competition tends to keep wages in it at
a higher level. But as the progress of invention
dispenses with peculiar skill, or artificial restrictions
are broken down, these higher wages sink to the ordinary
level. And so, it is only so long as they are special
that such qualities as industry, prudence and thrift can
enable the ordinary laborer to maintain a condition above
that which gives a mere living. Where they become
general, the law of competition must reduce the earnings
or savings of such qualities to the general level —
which, land being monopolized and labor helpless, can be
only that at which the next lowest point is the cessation
of life. ...
But worse perhaps than all else is the way in which
this substituting of vague injunctions to charity for the
clear-cut demands of justice opens an easy means for the
professed teachers of the Christian religion of all
branches and communions to placate Mammon while
persuading themselves that they are serving God. Had the
English clergy not subordinated the teaching of justice
to the teaching of charity — to go no further in
illustrating a principle of which the whole history of
Christendom from Constantine’s time to our own is
witness — the Tudor tyranny would never have
arisen, and the separation of the church been averted;
had the clergy of France never substituted charity for
justice, the monstrous iniquities of the ancient
régime would never have brought the horrors of the
Great Revolution; and in my own country had those who
should have preached justice not satisfied themselves
with preaching kindness, chattel slavery could never have
demanded the holocaust of our civil war.
No, your Holiness; as faith without works is dead, as
men cannot give to God his due while denying to their
fellows the rights be gave them, so charity unsupported
by justice can do nothing to solve the problem of the
existing condition of labor. Though the rich were to
“bestow all their goods to feed the poor and give
their bodies to be burned,” poverty would continue
while property in land continues.
Take the case of the rich man today who is honestly
desirous of devoting his wealth to the improvement of the
condition of labor. What can he do?
- Bestow his wealth on those who need it? He may help
some who deserve it, but will not improve general
conditions. And against the good he may do will be the
danger of doing harm.
- Build churches? Under the shadow of churches
poverty festers and the vice that is born of it
breeds.
- Build schools and colleges? Save as it may
lead men to see the iniquity of private property in
land, increased education can effect nothing for mere
laborers, for as education is diffused the wages of
education sink.
- Establish hospitals? Why, already it seems to
laborers that there are too many seeking work, and to
save and prolong life is to add to the pressure.
- Build model tenements? Unless he cheapens house
accommodations he but drives further the class he would
benefit, and as he cheapens house accommodations he
brings more to seek employment and cheapens wages.
- Institute laboratories, scientific schools,
workshops for physical experiments? He but stimulates
invention and discovery, the very forces that, acting
on a society based on private property in land, are
crushing labor as between the upper and the nether
millstone.
- Promote emigration from places where wages are low
to places where they are somewhat higher? If he does,
even those whom he at first helps to emigrate will soon
turn on him to demand that such emigration shall be
stopped as reducing their wages.
- Give away what land he may have, or refuse to take
rent for it, or let it at lower rents than the market
price? He will simply make new landowners or partial
landowners; he may make some individuals the richer,
but he will do nothing to improve the general condition
of labor.
- Or, bethinking himself of those public-spirited
citizens of classic times who spent great sums in
improving their native cities, shall he try to beautify
the city of his birth or adoption? Let him widen and
straighten narrow and crooked streets, let him build
parks and erect fountains, let him open tramways and
bring in railroads, or in any way make beautiful and
attractive his chosen city, and what will be the
result? Must it not be that those who appropriate
God’s bounty will take his also? Will it not be
that the value of land will go up, and that the net
result of his benefactions will be an increase of rents
and a bounty to landowners? Why, even the mere
announcement that he is going to do such things will
start speculation and send up the value of land by
leaps and bounds.
What, then, can the rich man do to improve the
condition of labor?
He can do nothing at all except to use his strength
for the abolition of the great primary wrong that robs
men of their birthright. The justice of God laughs at the
attempts of men to substitute anything else for it. ...
read the whole
letter
Henry George:
Progress & Poverty:
Introductory: The Problem
So long as all the increased wealth which modern
progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to
increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the
House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real
and cannot be permanent. The reaction must come. The
tower leans from its foundations, and every new story but
hastens the final catastrophe. To educate men who must be
condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to
base on a state of most glaring social inequality
political institutions under which men are not fully
equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex. ...
read the entire chapter
H.G. Brown:
Significant Paragraphs from Henry George's
Progress & Poverty: 14
Liberty, and Equality of Opportunity (in the unabridged
P&P:
Part X: The Law of Human Progress — Chapter 5: The
Central Truth)
The truth to which we were led in the
politico-economic branch of our inquiry is as clearly
apparent in the rise and fall of nations and the growth
and decay of civilizations, and it accords with those
deep-seated recognitions of relation and sequence that we
denominate moral perceptions. Thus are given to our
conclusions the greatest certitude and highest
sanction.
This truth involves both a menace and a promise. It
shows that the evils arising from the unjust and unequal
distribution of wealth, which are becoming more and more
apparent as modern civilization goes on, are not
incidents of progress, but tendencies which must bring
progress to a halt; that they will not cure themselves,
but, on the contrary, must, unless their cause is
removed, grow greater and greater, until they sweep us
back into barbarism by the road every previous
civilization has trod. But it also shows that these evils
are not imposed by natural laws; that they spring solely
from social maladjustments which ignore natural laws, and
that in removing their cause we shall be giving an
enormous impetus to progress.
The poverty which in the midst of abundance pinches
and embrutes men, and all the manifold evils which flow
from it, spring from a denial of justice. In permitting
the monopolization of the opportunities which nature
freely offers to all, we have ignored the fundamental law
of justice — for, so far as we can see, when we
view things upon a large scale, justice seems to be the
supreme law of the universe. But by sweeping away this
injustice and asserting the rights of all men to natural
opportunities, we shall conform ourselves to the law
—
- we shall remove the great cause of unnatural
inequality in the distribution of wealth and
power;
- we shall abolish poverty;
- tame the ruthless passions of greed;
- dry up the springs of vice and misery;
- light in dark places the lamp of knowledge;
- give new vigor to invention and a fresh impulse to
discovery;
- substitute political strength for political
weakness; and
- make tyranny and anarchy impossible.
The reform I have proposed accords with all that is
politically, socially, or morally desirable. It has the
qualities of a true reform, for it will make all other
reforms easier. What is it but the carrying out in letter
and spirit of the truth enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence — the "self-evident" truth that is the
heart and soul of the Declaration —"That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"
These rights are denied when the equal right to land
— on which and by which men alone can live —
is denied. Equality of political rights will not
compensate for the denial of the equal right to the
bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right
to land is denied, becomes, as population increases and
invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for
employment at starvation wages. This is the truth that we
have ignored. And so
- there come beggars in our streets and tramps on our
roads; and
- poverty enslaves men who we boast are political
sovereigns; and
- want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot
enlighten; and
- citizens vote as their masters dictate; and
- the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman;
and
- gold weighs in the scales of justice; and
- in high places sit those who do not pay to civic
virtue even the compliment of hypocrisy; and
- the pillars of the republic that we thought so
strong already bend under an increasing strain.
...
Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice.
In allowing one man to own the land on which and from
which other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen
in a degree which increases as material progress goes on.
This is the subtle alchemy that in ways they do not
realize is extracting from the masses in every civilized
country the fruits of their weary toil; that is
instituting a harder and more hopeless slavery in place
of that which has been destroyed; that is bringing
political despotism out of political freedom, and must
soon transmute democratic institutions into anarchy.
It is this that turns the blessings of material
progress into a curse. It is this that crowds human
beings into noisome cellars and squalid tenement houses;
that fills prisons and brothels; that goads men with want
and consumes them with greed; that robs women of the
grace and beauty of perfect womanhood; that takes from
little children the joy and innocence of life's morning.
...
The fiat has gone forth! With steam and electricity,
and the new powers born of progress, forces have entered
the world that will either compel us to a higher plane or
overwhelm us, as nation after nation, as civilization
after civilization, have been overwhelmed before. It is
the delusion which precedes destruction that sees in the
popular unrest with which the civilized world is
feverishly pulsing only the passing effect of ephemeral
causes. Between democratic ideas and the aristocratic
adjustments of society there is an irreconcilable
conflict. Here in the United States, as there in Europe,
it may be seen arising.
- We cannot go on permitting men to vote and forcing
them to tramp.
- We cannot go on educating boys and girls in our
public schools and then refusing them the right to earn
an honest living.
- We cannot go on prating of the inalienable rights
of man and then denying the inalienable right to the
bounty of the Creator. ...
read the whole chapter
"A. J. O." (probably Mark Twain)
Slavery
... Instead of being forced to keep my men in
brutish ignorance, I find public schools established at
other people’s expense to stimulate their
intelligence and improve their minds, to my great
advantage, and their children compelled to attend these
schools. The service I get, too, being now voluntarily
rendered (or apparently so) is much improved in quality.
In short, the arrangement pays me better in many ways.
... Read the whole piece
Winston Churchill: The
People's Land
Every form of enterprise only
undertaken after the land monopolist has skimmed the
cream off for himself It does not
matter where you look or what examples you select, you
will see that every form of enterprise, every step in
material progress, is only undertaken after the land
monopolist has skimmed the cream off for himself, and
everywhere today the man or the public body who wishes to
put land to its highest use is forced to pay a
preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting
it to an inferior use, and in some cases to no use at
all. All comes back to the land value, and its owner for
the time being is able to levy his toll upon all other
forms of wealth and upon every form of industry.
A portion, in some cases the whole, of
every benefit which is laboriously acquired by the
community is represented in the land value, and finds its
way automatically into the landlord's pocket. If
there is a rise in wages, rents are able to move forward,
because the workers can afford to pay a little more. If
the opening of a new railway or a new tramway or the
institution of an improved service of workmen's trains or
a lowering of fares or a new invention or any other
public convenience affords a benefit to the workers in
any particular district, it becomes easier for them to
live, and therefore the landlord and the
ground landlord, one on top of the other, are able to
charge them more for the privilege of living
there....
Read the whole
piece
Everett Gross: Explaining Rent
Sometimes it's difficult for people to understand the
meaning of "rent" as an economic concept. One way
I have of explaining it doesn't use the word rent. I
just use a little analogy.
I'm from Crete, Nebraska. It's a small town of 5,000
people.
Suppose a man comes to Crete, and he wants to start
a business. He needs a building, but first he needs a
piece of ground to build this new building on. So he
looks up a real estate agent, describes what he wants,
and the real estate agent shows him a parcel that's
just right for his needs. The man asks the agent, "All
right, now how much money do you want for this land?"
The agent says, "It's worth $50,000." The man says,
"Why is it worth $50,000?" And the real estate agent
points out that "The school is good, the roads are
good, the police department is good, the rescue crew is
good and very fast, and business is good here."
So the man says "Yeah, I believe that $50,0000
is a fair price. I'll take it. How do I pay the $50,000
to the school people, and the road people, and the
police department? To whom do I pay the $50,000?" And
the real estate agent says, "Oh no. You don't pay it to
them. You pay it to the person who owned the land
before."
The man says, "But who supports the schools, and the
roads, and the police, and the other good things?" And
the real estate agent says, "If you build, then
you'll pay for them again."
The buyer then asks, "And what will the previous
owner do for me for my $50,000?" The real estate
man answers, "Nothing! Nothing at all!"
Now I don't need to use the word "rent" in that
explanation.
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