Progress and Poverty
Also known as Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy
Henry George's 1879 inquiry into why poverty grows with progress; proposes a single tax on land values.
At a glance
Key ideas
Progress raises rent, not wages, Land means all of nature, Speculation causes depressions …
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- George asks why poverty persists amid economic and technological progress, and why economies swing between boom and bust.
- He argues that the gains of progress go to land owners as rent rather than to workers as wages.
- Land speculation, in his account, is the root cause of recessions.
- His remedy is a single tax on land values, high enough to replace other taxes on labor and production.
Why it matters
- It was one of the best-selling books of the late 1800s and helped start the Progressive Era and the Georgist movement; John Dewey estimated it had "a wider distribution than almost all other books on political economy put together".
Key facts
- Author
- Henry George1
- Published
- 1879; George's first book1
- Written
- While he was California's State Inspector of Gas Meters, from 1876 to 18802
- Sales
- Over three million copies soon after publication; by 1936 translated into 13 languages, with at least six million sold1
- Critics
- Karl Marx and Silvio Gesell criticized its theory of capital and interest1
Key ideas
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Progress raises rent, not wages1
As a place grows, land becomes worth more, and those who work it must pay more for the privilege.
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Land means all of nature1
George defines land as "all natural materials, forces, and opportunities", everything supplied by nature.
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Speculation causes depressions1
Land prices rise faster than wealth can be produced to pay them, squeezing wages until businesses fail.
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The single tax1
A tax on land values alone would end other taxes and push owners to use well-located land productively.
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Against the iron law of wages1
The opening parts reject the iron law of wages and Malthusianism.
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