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62-452: The organization was founded in 1925 to promote public awareness of the social and economic philosophy of Henry George and keep his works in print. It is the oldest Georgist organization in existence and actively supports Georgist ideas such as land value taxation . The Foundation, in partnership with Wiley Publishing , sponsors The American Journal of Economics and Sociology . Founding editor Will Lissner, who served from 1941 to 1989,

124-600: A citizen's dividend paid for by a land value tax in an April 1885 speech at a Knights of Labor local in Burlington, Iowa titled "The Crime of Poverty", and later in an interview with former U.S. House Representative David Dudley Field II from New York's 7th congressional district published in the July 1885 edition of the North American Review : As an English friend of mine puts it: No taxes and

186-485: A debt jubilee could remove the accumulation of burdensome obligations without reducing aggregate wealth. George Henry Soule Jr. George Henry Soule Jr. (June 11, 1887 – April 14, 1970) was an American labor economist, author, and a long time editor and contributor to The New Republic . George Soule was born in Stamford, Connecticut on June 11, 1887 and was graduated from Yale University in 1908. He

248-454: A single tax on land values would create a more productive and just society. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), sold millions of copies worldwide. The treatise investigates the paradox of increasing inequality and poverty amid economic and technological progress, the business cycle with its cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of rent capture such as land value taxation and other anti-monopoly reforms as

310-404: A financial dispute with U.S. Senator John P. Jones . Unable to find work or provide for his family, George wrote to Governor Irwin, who rewarded him with the office of State Inspector of Gas Meters. George held that office from 1876 to 1880, during which he was able to write Progress and Poverty . Around the same time, the anti-Chinese Workingmen's Party led by Denis Kearney was seeing

372-420: A flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege. Furthermore, on a visit to New York City, he was struck by the apparent paradox that the poor in that long-established city were much worse off than the poor in less developed California. These observations supplied

434-405: A global speaking tour concerning land rights and the relationship between rent and poverty. This stroke greatly weakened him, and he never truly recovered. Despite this, George tried to remain active in politics. Against the advice of his doctors, George campaigned for New York City mayor again in 1897, this time as an Independent Democrat, saying, "I will make the race if I die for it." The strain of

496-447: A great injustice that private profit was being earned from restricting access to natural resources while productive activity was burdened with heavy income taxes, and he indicated that such a system was equivalent to slavery . This is also the work in which he made the case for a land value tax in which governments would tax the value of the land itself, thus preventing private interests from profiting upon its mere possession but allowing

558-411: A horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking San Francisco Bay . He later wrote of the revelation that he had: I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, "I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." Like

620-425: A less significant form of monopoly than the owners of land title deeds, partly because he viewed the owners of locations as "the robber that takes all that is left." People could choose not to buy a specific new product, but they cannot choose to lack a place upon which to stand, so benefits gained for labor through lesser reforms would tend to eventually be captured by owners and financers of location monopoly. George

682-500: A major issue in federal politics and his book Protection or Free Trade was the first book to be read entirely into the Congressional Record . It was read by five Democratic congressmen. In 1997, Spencer MacCallum wrote that Henry George was "undeniably the greatest writer and orator on free trade who ever lived." In 2009, Tyler Cowen wrote that George's 1886 book Protection or Free Trade "remains perhaps

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744-565: A meeting, calling George a martyr. The New York Times reported that later in the evening, an organized funeral procession of about 2,000 people left from the Grand Central Palace and made its way through Manhattan to the Brooklyn Bridge . This procession was "all the way ... thronged on either side by crowds of silent watchers." The procession then went on to Brooklyn , where the crowd at Brooklyn City Hall "was

806-507: A meteoric rise in popularity. George supported the party and endorsed their platform, but took issue with Kearney himself. When California's Second Constitutional Convention was called in 1878, George was nominated as a delegate on both the Democratic and Workingmen's tickets, but lost the latter's nomination after he refused to recognize Kearney as leader of the party. While an anti-Kearney faction still nominated him, his refusal to toe

868-459: A monopoly over specific arrangements and interactions of materials, governed by the forces of nature, allowed title-holders to extract royalty-rents from producers, in a way similar to owners of ordinary land titles. George later supported limited copyright, on the ground that temporary property over a unique arrangement of words or colors did not in any way prevent others from laboring to make other works of art. George apparently ranked patent rents as

930-545: A pension and disability system, and an unconditional basic income from surplus land rents. It would be distributed to residents "as a right" instead of as charity. Georgists often refer to this policy as a citizen's dividend in reference to a similar proposal by Thomas Paine . George noted that most debt, though bearing the appearance of genuine capital interest, was not issued for the purpose of creating true capital, but instead as an obligation against rental flows from existing economic privilege. George therefore reasoned that

992-490: 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

1054-466: A remedy for these and other social problems. Other works by George defended free trade , the secret ballot , free (at marginal cost) public utilities/transportation provided by the capture of their resulting land rent uplift, Pigouvian taxation , and public ownership of other natural monopolies. George was a journalist for many years, and the popularity of his writing and speeches brought him to run for election as Mayor of New York City in 1886 . As

1116-816: A report on the labour policy of the Industrial Service Sections Ordnance Department and Air Service for the War Department and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corps. He was a director of the Labour Bureau, Inc., which engages in economic research for labour organizations. He wrote the 1946 review of Animal Farm in The New Republic. In 1940 he was married to Helen Flanders Dunbar . A daughter, Marcia,

1178-548: A very interesting thing that in times of war, we blockade our enemies in order to prevent them from getting goods from us. In time of peace we do to ourselves by tariffs what we do to our enemy in time of war." George was one of the earliest and most prominent advocates of the secret ballot in the United States. Harvard historian Jill Lepore asserts that Henry George's advocacy is the reason Americans vote with secret ballots today. George's first article in support of

1240-505: Is Josie Faass. Past directors have included economists Mason Gaffney and Nicolaus Tideman . As of 2021 the foundation receives grants from the Francis Neilson Trust Fund. It holds approximately $ 18 million in assets. This article about an organization in the United States is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897)

1302-595: Is found in Progress and Poverty : "We must make land common property." By taxing land values , society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, raise wages, improve land use, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity. George believed it would remove existing incentives toward land speculation and encourage development, as landlords would not suffer tax penalties for any industry or edifice constructed on their land and could not profit by holding valuable sites vacant. Broadly applying this principle

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1364-408: 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. George proposed to create

1426-520: Is now commonly known as " Georgism ." In George's time, it was known as the "single-tax" movement and sometimes associated with movements for land nationalization, especially in Ireland. However, in Progress and Poverty , George did not favor the idea of nationalization. I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let

1488-737: The Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. George chafed at his religious upbringing and left the academy without graduating. Instead he convinced his father to hire a tutor and supplemented this with avid reading and attending lectures at the Franklin Institute . His formal education ended at age 14, and he went to sea as a foremast boy at age 15 in April 1855 on the Hindoo , bound for Melbourne and Calcutta . He ended up in

1550-673: The United Labor Party nominee in 1886 and in 1897 as the Jefferson Democracy Party nominee, he received 31 percent and 4 percent of the vote respectively and finished ahead of former New York State Assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt in the first race. After his death during the second campaign, his ideas were carried forward by organizations and political leaders through the United States and other Anglophone countries. The mid-20th century labor economist and journalist George Soule wrote that George

1612-563: The American West in 1858 and briefly considered prospecting for gold but instead started work the same year in San Francisco as a type setter . In California, George fell in love with Annie Corsina Fox from Sydney, Australia. They met on her seventeenth birthday on October 12, 1860. She had been orphaned and was living with an uncle. The uncle, a prosperous, strong-minded man, was opposed to his niece's impoverished suitor. But

1674-539: The Democratic nomination for State Assembly . However, he refused to pay the party’s assessment fee, and was therefore ineligible for consideration. Despite this setback, he remained active in the California Democratic Party . Governor Henry Huntly Haight , impressed by the young journalist, recruited George to manage the party’s newspaper in Sacramento , and in 1871 he served as secretary of

1736-483: The Democratic state convention as it renominated Haight. Later that year, he finally received the party’s nomination for State Assembly, but was defeated alongside the rest of the ticket in a Republican landslide . In the 1875 election , George campaigned for Democrat William Irwin , who handily won thanks to Republican vote splitting. A few months later, George was forced to give up the Evening Post due to

1798-737: The Henry George Lecture Series, a public lecture series on economics held annually since 1986 at the University of Scranton . A number of lecturers from the series have subsequently won the Nobel Prize. The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, along with the Center for the Study of Economics, co-sponsors the Center for Property Tax Reform (CPTR), a nonprofit for research into property taxes. The organization's executive director

1860-681: The Railroad Will Bring Us." George argued that the boom in railroad construction would benefit only the lucky few who owned interests in the railroads and other related enterprises, while throwing the greater part of the population into abject poverty. This had led to him earning the enmity of the Central Pacific Railroad 's executives, who helped defeat his bid for election to the California State Assembly . One day in 1871 George went for

1922-555: The State and nation and to the United States Senate, and an honor to himself; a man whose heart beats in sympathy with the great body of the people; a man who is eminently like unto that greatest of modern men—Abraham Lincoln; a man who, if the people were to select, would be selected as the champion of their rights; a man—a man who has already gained a national reputation as the ablest political economist of America, standing

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1984-419: The banking system but believed that would actually be an economic boon, since the financial sector, in its existing form, was mostly augmenting rent extraction, as opposed to productive investment. "The curse of credit," George wrote, was "... that it expands when there is a tendency to speculation, and sharply contracts just when most needed to assure confidence and prevent industrial waste." George even said that

2046-456: The best-argued tract on free trade to this day." Jim Powell said that Protection or Free Trade was probably the best book on trade written by anyone in the Americas, comparing it to Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations . Milton Friedman said it was the most rhetorically brilliant work ever written on trade. Friedman also paraphrased one of George's arguments in favor of free trade: "It's

2108-904: The campaign precipitated a second stroke, leading to his death four days before the election. An estimated 100,000 people visited Grand Central Palace during the day to see Henry George's face, with an estimated equal number crowding outside, unable to enter, and held back by police. After the Palace doors closed, the Reverend Lyman Abbott , Father Edward McGlynn , Rabbi Gustav Gottheil , R. Heber Newton (Episcopalian), and John Sherwin Crosby delivered addresses. Separate memorial services were held elsewhere. In Chicago, five thousand people lined up to hear memorial addresses by former Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld and John Lancaster Spalding . Mayor Strong broke down and cried at

2170-423: The couple, defying him, eloped and married on December 3, 1861, with Henry dressed in a borrowed suit and Annie bringing only a packet of books. The marriage was a happy one, and four children were born to them. On November 3, 1862, Annie gave birth to Henry George Jr. (1862–1916), a future United States Representative from New York. Early on, even with the birth of future sculptor Richard F. George (1865–1912),

2232-518: The densest ever seen there." There were "thousands on thousands" at City Hall who were so far back that they could not see the funeral procession pass. It was impossible to move on any of the nearby streets. The Times wrote, "Rarely has such an enormous crowd turned out in Brooklyn on any occasion," but that nonetheless, "[t]he slow tolling of the City Hall bell and the regular beating of drums were

2294-572: The excommunication of Father Edward McGlynn , and many who disagreed with George's free trade policy. George had particular trouble with Terrence V. Powderly , president of the Knights of Labor , a key member of the United Labor coalition. While initially friendly with Powderly, George vigorously opposed the tariff policies which Powderly and many other labor leaders thought vital to the protection of American workers. George's strident criticism of

2356-501: The family was near starvation. George's other two children were both daughters. The first was Jennie George, (c. 1867–1897), later to become Jennie George Atkinson. George's other daughter was Anna Angela George (1878-1947), who would become mother of both future dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille and future actress Peggy George , who was born Margaret George de Mille. Following the birth of his second child, George had no work and no money and had to beg for food. As he approached

2418-570: The first well-dressed stranger he saw in the street, George, normally a lawful man, decided to rob him if he was unwilling to help. Fortunately, the man took pity on him and gave him five dollars. George was raised as an Episcopalian, but he believed in "deistic humanitarianism". His wife Annie was Irish Catholic , but Henry George Jr. wrote that the children were mainly influenced by Henry George's deism and humanism . After deciding against gold mining in British Columbia, George

2480-498: The individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent. George considered businesses relying on exclusive right-of-way land privilege to be "natural" monopolies . Examples of these services included

2542-471: The more conservative New York Sun wrote that, "Since the Civil War, few announcements have been more startling than that of the sudden death of Henry George." Flags were placed at half-staff, even at Tammany Hall, which cancelled its rally for the day. Henry George is best known for his argument that the economic rent of land (location) should be shared by society. The clearest statement of this view

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2604-481: The only sounds that broke the stillness. ... Anything more impressive ... could not be imagined." At Court Street, the casket was transferred to a hearse and taken to a private funeral at Fort Hamilton . Commentators disagreed on whether it was the largest funeral in New York history or the largest since the death of Abraham Lincoln . The New York Times reported, "Not even Lincoln had a more glorious death." Even

2666-503: The party line cost him the election, though he still polled the highest of any Democrat in the district. When the California State Legislature convened in 1881 to elect a U.S. Senator , State Senator Warren Chase nominated George. In his nomination speech, Chase eulogized George as follows: He has in knowledge of American and European history no superior in this State. He is a man who can be an honor to

2728-663: The peer of John Stuart Mill, Ricardo and Adam Smith, and all the writers of history on political economy. George only received two votes out of 40 cast in the State Senate ; one from Chase, and the other from fellow Workingmen's Senator Joseph C. Gorman . In 1880, now a popular writer and speaker, George moved to New York City, becoming closely allied with the Irish nationalist community despite being of English ancestry. From there he made several speaking journeys abroad to places such as Ireland and Scotland where access to land

2790-624: The secret ballot was entitled "Bribery in Elections" and was published in the Overland Review of December 1871. His second article was "Money in Elections," published in the North American Review of March 1883. The first secret ballot reform approved by a state legislature was brought about by reformers who said they were influenced by George. The first state to adopt the secret ballot, also called The Australian Ballot,

2852-558: The state should not provide aid to creditors in the form of sheriffs, constables, courts, and prisons to enforce collection on these illegitimate obligations. George did not provide any data to support this view, but in today's developed economies, much of the supply of credit is created to purchase claims on future land rents, rather than to finance the creation of true capital. Michael Hudson and Adair Turner estimate that about 80 percent of credit finances real estate purchases, mostly land. George acknowledged that this policy would limit

2914-527: The tariff set him against Powderly and others in the labor movement. In 1897 , George again ran for mayor of New York City. However, he had his fatal stroke during the campaign. During George's life, communities in Delaware and Alabama were developed based on his single tax on land and this legacy continued through applications in a number of areas around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan . George's first stroke occurred in 1890, after

2976-435: The theme and title for his 1879 book Progress and Poverty , which was a great success, selling over three million copies. In it George made the argument that a sizeable portion of the wealth created by social and technological advances in a free market economy is possessed by land owners and monopolists via economic rents , and that this concentration of unearned wealth is the main cause of poverty. George considered it

3038-497: The total cost of those investments . George used the example of urban buildings that provide free vertical transit, paid out of some of the increased value that residents derive from the addition of elevators. George was opposed to or suspicious of all intellectual property privilege, because his classical definition of "land" included "all natural forces and opportunities." Therefore, George proposed to abolish or greatly limit intellectual property privilege. In George's view, owning

3100-714: The transportation of utilities (water, electricity, sewage), information (telecommunications), goods, and travelers. George advocated that these systems of transport along "public ways" should usually be managed as public utilities and provided for free or at marginal cost . In some cases, it might be possible to allow competition between private service providers along public "rights of way," such as parcel shipping companies that operate on public roads, but wherever competition would be impossible, George supported complete municipalization . George said that these services would be provided for free because investments in beneficial public goods always tend to increase land values by more than

3162-549: The value of all improvements made to that land to remain with investors. George was in a position to discover this pattern, having experienced poverty himself, knowing many different societies from his travels, and living in California at a time of rapid growth. In particular he had noticed that the construction of railroads in California was increasing land values and rents as fast as or faster than wages were rising. George first ran for public office in 1869, when he sought

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3224-531: Was (and still is) a major political issue. In 1886 , George campaigned for mayor of New York City as the candidate of the United Labor Party, the short-lived political society of the United Labor Party . He polled second, more than the Republican candidate Theodore Roosevelt . The election was won by Tammany Hall candidate Abram Stevens Hewitt by what many of George's supporters believed

3286-484: Was Massachusetts in 1888 under the leadership of Richard Henry Dana III. By 1891, more than half the states had adopted it too. George supported the use of "debt free" (sovereign money) currency, such as the greenback , which governments would spend into circulation to help finance public spending through the capture of seigniorage rents. He opposed the use of metallic currency, such as gold or silver, and fiat money created by private commercial banks. George advocated

3348-539: Was a member of the editorial staff of The New Republic from 1914 to 1918 and during 1919 editorial writer for the New York Evening Post . In 1920, Soule helped organize the Labor Bureau, Inc. (LBI), an independent professional group, with Evans Clark , Alfred L. Bernheim, David J. Saposs . The LBI acted as economic advisers and public relations counselors for labor unions. Soule drafted

3410-511: Was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era . He inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism , the belief that people should own the value they produce themselves, but that the economic value of land (including natural resources ) should belong equally to all members of society. George famously argued that

3472-737: Was assisted for many years by Dorothy Burnham Lissner. Subsequent editors-in-chief include Frank C. Genovese, Laurence S. Moss (1997-2009), Clifford W. Cobb, and Richard H. Cebula (2022-). In 1986, the Foundation funded the Henry George Chair in Economics at The Peter J. Tobin College of Business of St. John's University . Holders of the named chair include Northrup Buechner (1981-1991), Joseph A. Giacallone (1991-2019) and Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan (2019-). The Society also supports

3534-494: Was by far "the most famous American economic writer" and "author of a book which probably had a larger world-wide circulation than any other work on economics ever written." George was born in Philadelphia to a lower-middle-class family, the second of ten children of Richard S. H. George and Catharine Pratt George (née Vallance). His father was a publisher of religious texts and a devout Episcopalian , and he sent George to

3596-446: Was eventually forced to go to the streets to beg. The George family struggled, but George's improving reputation and involvement in the newspaper industry lifted them from poverty. George began as a Lincoln Republican , then eventually became a Democrat . He was a strong critic of railroad and mining interests, corrupt politicians, land speculators, and labor contractors. He first articulated his views in an 1868 article entitled "What

3658-426: Was fraud. In the 1887 New York state elections , George came in a distant third in the election for Secretary of State of New York . The United Labor Party was soon weakened by internal divisions: the management was essentially Georgist, but as a party of organized labor it also included some Marxist members who did not want to distinguish between land and capital , many Catholic members who were discouraged by

3720-539: Was hired as a printer for the newly created San Francisco Times . He was able to immediately submit editorials for publication, including the popular What the Railroads Will Bring Us (1868), which remained required reading in California schools for decades. George climbed the ranks of the Times , eventually becoming managing editor in the summer of 1867. George's first nationally prominent writing

3782-613: Was his 1869 essay The Chinese in California , in which he wrote that Chinese immigration should be ended before Chinese immigrants overrun the western United States. George worked for several papers, including four years (1871–1875) as editor of his own newspaper, the San Francisco Daily Evening Post , and for a time running the Reporter , a Democratic anti-monopoly publication. George experienced four tough years of trying to keep his newspaper afloat and

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3844-442: Was opposed to tariffs , which were at the time both the major method of protectionist trade policy and an important source of federal revenue, the federal income tax having not yet been introduced. He argued that tariffs kept prices high for consumers, while failing to produce any increase in overall wages. He also believed that tariffs protected monopolistic companies from competition, thus augmenting their power. Free trade became

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