GEORGE, HENRY

born Sept. 2, 1839, Philadelphia died Oct. 29, 1897, New York City land reformer and economist who in Progress and Poverty (1879) proposed the single tax: that the state tax away all economic rentthe income from the use of the bare land, but not from improvementsand abolish all other taxes. Leaving school before his 14th birthday, George worked for two years as a clerk in an importing house and then went to sea. Back in Philadelphia in 1856, he learned typesetting and in 1857 signed up as a steward on another ship, quitting it in San Francisco to join the gold rush in Canada, where, however, he arrived too late. In 1858 he returned to California, where he worked for newspapers and took part in Democratic Party politics until 1880. In 1871 he and two partners started the San Francisco Daily Evening Post, but credit difficulties forced them to close it in 1875. A political appointment as state gas-meter inspector enabled him to work on Progress and Poverty. George's book caught the spirit of discontent that had arisen from the great depression of 187378. It had an enormous sale and was translated into many languages. Its vogue was enhanced by George's pamphlets, his frequent contributions to magazines, and his lecture tours in both the United States and the British Isles. As a basis for his argument, George gave new meaning to the orthodox, or Ricardian, doctrine of rent. He applied the law of diminishing returns and the concept of margin of productivity to land alone. He argued that since economic progress entailed a growing scarcity of land, the idle landowner reaped ever greater returns at the expense of the productive factors of labour and capital. This unearned economic rent, he held, should be taxed away by the state. George envisaged that the government's annual income from this single tax would be so large that there would be a surplus for expansion of public works. His economic argument was reinforced and dominated by humanitarian and religious appeal. George's specific remedy had no significant practical result, and few economists of reputation supported it. Nevertheless, his forceful emphasis on privilege, his demand for equality of opportunity, and his systematic economic analysis proved a stimulus to orderly reform. Additional reading R.A. Sawyer, Henry George and the Single Tax (1926); Anna George de Mille, Henry George, ed. by D.C. Shoemaker (1950); S.B. Cord, Henry George: Dreamer or Realist? (1965).