Henry George
Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) 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 a single tax on land values would create a more productive and just society.
For other uses, see Henry George (disambiguation).
Henry George
September 2, 1839
October 29, 1897 (aged 58)
- Progress and Poverty (1879)
- Protection or Free Trade (1886)
Annie Corsina Fox
- Economics
- Ethics
- Politics
- Citizen's dividend
- Free public goods from land value capture
- Georgism
- Land value tax
- Municipalization
- Monetary sovereignty
- Single tax
- Spaceship Earth
- Theory of land monopoly
- Unearned income
His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), sold millions of copies worldwide.[1] 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 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.[2] As 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 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."[3]
Artist depiction of funeral procession
George's first stroke occurred in 1890, after 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 the campaign precipitated a second stroke, leading to his death four days before the election.[38][39][40][41]
An estimated 100,000 people visited Grand Central Palace during the day to see Henry George's face, with an estimated equal number[42] 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.[43]
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.[44] Mayor Strong broke down and cried at a meeting, calling George a martyr.[41]
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 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 the only sounds that broke the stillness. ... Anything more impressive ... could not be imagined."[45] 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."[46] Even 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."[47] Flags were placed at half-staff, even at Tammany Hall, which cancelled its rally for the day.[41]
