# Henry George Henry George (2 September 1839 – 29 October 1897) was an American journalist and political economist. He had almost no formal academic training. His 1879 book *Progress and Poverty* made him, for a stretch of the 1890s, one of the most widely read living writers in English and the namesake of [[Georgism]]. [[@TaxLandNotMan]] treats him as the last economist who stated the land question plainly. ^bio ## Life Born in Philadelphia, second of ten children. Left school at fourteen. Worked as a sailor and typesetter; reached San Francisco in 1858. Spent years as a struggling journalist and editor, hostile to railroad land grants, mining monopolies, and speculation. Unsuccessful as a Democratic candidate for the California legislature; a sinecure as state inspector of gas meters gave him time to write. ^life ## *Progress and Poverty* (1879) Full title: *Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth — the Remedy.* Self-published after rejections (first run of 500, George setting much of the type). Appleton then took the plates. It sold in the hundreds of thousands quickly and, by later counts, millions worldwide, with dozens of translations. Alfred Russel Wallace called it “the most remarkable and important book of the present century.” ^pp **Diagnosis.** Why does poverty deepen as material progress accelerates? Because land is fixed and privately titled, while its *location value* is created by population, public works, and neighboring activity. That unearned increment accrues as rent to title-holders. Labor and capital then compete down toward subsistence; speculation in land produces boom-bust cycles. **Remedy.** Collect the rental value of land for public use and abolish other taxes: > To abolish all taxation save that upon land values. George argued this was both *just* (no one made the earth; each owns only what labor and capital create) and *efficient* (land supply is inelastic, so the tax does not shrink the base). He claimed land values in a developed country were already large enough to fund government. See [[Single tax]] and [[Land value tax]]. ^remedy Other books: *Protection or Free Trade* (1886), *A Perplexed Philosopher* (1892), the unfinished *The Science of Political Economy*, and the open letter *The Condition of Labor* (1891) to Pope Leo XIII. ## Mayoral runs **1886 — New York City, United Labor Party.** Petition of tens of thousands of union voters. Official canvass: Abram S. Hewitt (Tammany Democrat) 90,552; George 68,110; Republican Theodore Roosevelt 60,435 (figures vary slightly by source). George finished ahead of the future president. Supporters long alleged fraud. The loss, Albert Jay Nock later wrote, recast George in respectable eyes from economist to “agitator and crank.” ^1886 **1897 — Greater New York, Jefferson Democracy.** Doctors warned that another campaign would kill him. He accepted anyway. Reported remark: > How can I die better than serving humanity? Besides, so dying will do more for the cause than anything I am likely to be able to do in the rest of my life. Nominated 5 October 1897. Died of a stroke in the Union Square Hotel on the morning of 29 October, four days before the election, age 58. The ticket was filled by his son, Henry George Jr.; Tammany’s Robert A. Van Wyck won. ^1897 ## Funeral Body lay in state at Grand Central Palace (Lexington Avenue at 45th–46th). Contemporary estimates: on the order of 100,000 people passed the bier; as many again could not get near. *The New York Times* (1 November 1897) compared the demonstration to Lincoln’s lying-in-state at City Hall. Services 31 October; interment 1 November at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, beside his daughter Jennie. Pallbearers included Tom L. Johnson and Thomas G. Shearman. Election day was the day after the burial. ^funeral ## Afterlife of the idea George sits in two family trees at once: Progressive-Era reform (labor, municipal ownership, land-value capture) and later anti-statist / [[Geolibertarianism]] (Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Fred Foldvary). Formal public-finance restatements include the [[Henry George Theorem]] (Stiglitz 1977; Arnott–Stiglitz 1979) and [[ATCOR]] (Gaffney). Britain’s [[People's Budget 1909]] was a partial, low-rate attempt that failed administratively. [[@TaxLandNotMan]]’s reading is the hard single-tax reading: George did not, in this view, advocate a [[Citizen's dividend]]. The tax replaces other taxes; equal access to land *is* the justice. That is contested inside modern Georgism. --- ## Citations 1. Henry George, *Progress and Poverty* (1879), Book 8, ch. 2: “To abolish all taxation save that upon land values.” Excerpted at [explorepahistory.com](https://explorepahistory.com/odocument.php?docId=1-4-20B.html). 2. [Henry George — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George). Born 2 Sept 1839, Philadelphia; died 29 Oct 1897, New York; Green-Wood Cemetery. 3. [Biography of Henry George | Prosper Australia](https://www.prosper.org.au/biography/). 1886 canvass: Hewitt 90,552; George 68,110; Roosevelt 60,435. Wallace quotation. 4. [Henry George — New World Encyclopedia](https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Henry_George). San Francisco years; Irish tour; later books. 5. [progress.org wiki: Henry George](https://www.progress.org/wiki/henry-george/). Self-publication; “counted out” claim via Henry George Jr., *Life of Henry George* (1900). 6. [Henry George 100 Years Later — Progress and Poverty Institute](https://progressandpovertyinstitute.org/henry-george-100-years-later-the-great-reconciler/). “Third most famous American” claim; 1886 as labor campaign. 7. Alfred Henry Lewis, “Henry George’s Funeral Rites,” *New York Sun* (1897), reprint at [cooperative-individualism.org](https://cooperative-individualism.org/lewis-alfred_henry-george's-funeral-rites-1897-oct.htm). 8. “THE FUNERAL OF HENRY GEORGE,” [*New York Times*, 1 Nov 1897](https://www.nytimes.com/1897/11/01/archives/the-funeral-of-henry-george.html). Comparison with Lincoln. 9. Jack Schwartzman, “The Death of Henry George” (1997 PDF at cooperative-individualism.org). ~100,000 at the bier; nomination and stroke chronology. 10. *Addresses at the Funeral of Henry George*, compiled by Edmund Yardley (archive.org). “How can I die better than serving humanity?” 11. [The Prophet of San Francisco, Part 2 — progress.org](https://www.progress.org/articles/henry-george-the-prophet-of-san-francisco-part-2/). Nock on the 1886 aftermath; death scene at the Union Square Hotel. 12. Paul Forrester, [“Henry George: An Exploration of Some Consequences to Taxing Only Land”](https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2024/forresterpovertysolution.html), Econlib, 2024. Justice vs efficiency arguments; Book 9 ch. 3 distribution quote. 13. Account reading: [[TaxLandNotMan-sources]].