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| Wealth and Want | |||||||
| ... because democracy alone is not enough to produce widely shared prosperity. | |||||||
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Pension Henry George: The Crime of
Poverty (1885 speech)
But I have not time to enter into further
details. I can only ask you to think upon this thing, and
the more you will see its desirability. As an English
friend of mine puts it: "No taxes and a pension for
everybody;" and why should it not be? To take land values
for public purposes is not really to impose a tax, but to
take for public purposes a value created by the
community. And out of the fund which
would thus accrue from the common property, we might,
without degradation to anybody, provide enough to
actually secure from want all who were deprived of their
natural protectors or met with accident, or any man who
should grow so old that he could not work. All
prating that is heard from some quarters about its
hurting the common people to give them what they do not
work for is humbug. The truth is, that anything that
injures self-respect, degrades, does harm; but if you
give it as a right, as something to which every citizen
is entitled to, it does not degrade. Charity schools do
degrade children that are sent to them, but public
schools do not. ... read the
whole speech
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Wealth and Want
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... because democracy alone hasn't yet led to a society
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