Talk:Henry George

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Henry George article.

Article policies
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Science and academia work group.
Socrates This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.

I have trouble believeing that HG was the third most famous man in America. More famous than the President? More famous than the tycoons and industrialists? By what measure was he "the most famous"? I'll probably weaken that statement unless someone gives more details.

adam

It's a claim repeatedly found in Georgist literature, but I agree it's the least well supported assertion on the page. Maybe it started out as "popular" rather than "famous". Pm67nz

"Progress and Poverty and its successors made Henry George the third most famous man in the USA, behind only Mark Twain and Thomas Edison.". According to who ? Jay 05:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A bit of googling suggests that the claim originated with Agnes de Mille. Pm67nz

This page also seems to have good info:

http://www.henrygeorge.org/

I will add it as a link, please tell me what you think of it.

As it happens that link was here before, but it got moved to Georgist. No harm in having it back.
The Milton Friedman quote should probably go to Land Value Tax though. On second thoughts I just followed the link and it's more than just the MF quote, it's an article written by someone who clearly hasn't read HG, and misrepresents his point of view, so that link is more misleading than helpful. Out it goes. Pm67nz

This is a minor issue, but the article states that George "predicted that if Marx's ideas were tried the likely result would be a dictatorship," but this really doesn't tell us anything because Marx explicitly advocated a "dictatorship of the proletariant." I think I understand the point of this sentence, but the wording is confusing in light of the terminology that Marx actually used. I have no idea of what George said about Marx, so I can't edit this. AdamRetchless 04:02, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but I've heard from some Marxists that Marx's use of the word "dictatorship" is a bit more ambiguous than that. He advocated a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in the same way that he saw capitalism as a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisei." In other words, the proletariat would become the new ruling(and only) class.--Paradigm 22:02, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:Poccil wondered at what time Henry George was the third most famous man in America. -- Derek Ross | Talk Late nineteenth century, wasn't it ?


One day I might get around to fixing this myself, but it won't be soon so for now a quick vent on the talk page will have to do: The "His Economic Theory" section may be literally true, but it mis-emphasises interest to a degree that makes it misleading. HG's fame is due to his ideas about land and free trade, not his ideas about the nature of interest. Some otherwise "Georgist" authors explicitly say that he got interest wrong. He is also remembered as a clear writer of books aimed at the general public, while the plane/carpenter story is rather hard for a non-economist to grasp - I imagine it comes from "The Science of Political Economy" rather than one of his earlier and more widely read books. If the goal is to sum up HG with just one or two of his own paragraphs then they have to be primarily and clearly about land and land tax, and should be probably be extracted from the abridged edition of "Progress and Poverty" Pm67nz 10:43, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The section on "his economic theory" doesn't discuss his "claim to fame." Instead it discusses, as one might expect, his economic theory. And the point about the theory of interest, the borrowed plane, etc., is crucial to that theory. --Christofurio 14:30, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Economics

I'm wondering what economic school of thought George would fall under. He seems like he leans towards the classical school, and not so much the neoclassical. In some ways, he seems like he'd fall under green economics or Natural Capitalism, since his writings seem to reflect ideas such as uneconomic growth and the idea of land as a public good. I've heard some Georgists use the term "Geonomics." Does it really warrant its own label like that, or does it fall reasonably within a particular economic theory? --Paradigm 07:33, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Georgists use "Geonomics" as something of a pun. The "geo" can stand either for George or for "geology" -- resources, the earth, etc. I think the analogy to contemporary talk of Natural Capitalism is a good one. --Christofurio 13:22, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] land tax

"Modern day economists like Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman admit that Henry George's Land tax is potentially beneficial because, unlike other taxes, land taxes tend not to affect the prices of consumer products." A curious statement! I am sure that this should be corrected to: land taxes tend not to affect the price of land (after tax). (I.e. no distortionary effects on supply and therefore demand). CSMR 02:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually the imposition of Land tax in a region will lead to a drop in the price of land in that area but that's a good thing. Cheap land is one of the things required for new businesses and the resulting fast economic growth. The price drop happens because people who are holding land for speculative reasons or solely in order to rent it out will be discouraged from doing so and therefore the demand for land will drop.
One of the major benefits of Land tax is indeed that it does not affect the prices of consumer products (or the level of wages or employment) in the damaging way that other taxes such as income tax or sales tax do. This may well be "curious" but it's also demonstrable.
The reason is that the cost of taxes like sales tax or income tax are ultimately passed on to the consumer even when they are initially levied on the producer whereas the cost of Land tax cannot be passed on. This may seem hard to believe but the reason that it cannot be passed on, is that Land tax is basically a tax on rent. It is normally safe to assume that rent is already charged at the highest rate the rational landlord can manage to extract from the tenant (surprisingly this can even be said to be true when the landlord and tenant are the same person) so for that reason the landlord cannot increase the rent whatever the land tax rate may be. He can only choose between accepting a lower portion of the rent or selling the land. Thus the tenant pays the same rent whether Land tax is levied or not. Thus there is nothing for him to pass on. Hence the curious statement on our part. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
An increase in the cost of owning land from a land tax will likely have some effect on increasing rents. Although assuming the supply of land is not effected the increase should be less, likely much less, then the total cost of the tax. People often don't make every possible effort to extract every penny they can from an asset. When the profit is decreased (esp. if it turns in to a loss), there is more incentive to trade more time and effort to push the rent as higher. Twfowler 19:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
There is also more incentive to ensure that every rentable piece of land has a tenant. As a result the incentive that you mention is counterbalanced by a fear of having no tenant at all. Since the tax is paid whether or not land-for-rent has actually been rented, landowners will want to ensure that they don't set rents so high that tenants go elsewhere. Far better to charge just enough to cover the costs than to end up having to eat them all yourself. Look at it from this angle and you may suspect that a land tax will have some effect on decreasing rents. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
A land tax will tend to be imposed almost entirely on the current owners of land. A land owner might try to raise rents, but its unlikely he can recover his additional costs. If he keeps it, he pays the tax. If he sells it, he gets less because the expected future profit from the land is less. Future buyers make less profit from the land, but they pay less for that lower expected profit, in effect they are not hit by the tax, just the current owner. Twfowler 19:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Who says that the expected future profit from the land is less? In the few cases where the single tax has been fully implemented (ie land tax implemented and sales/income/etc. taxes abolished), the effect on the local economy has been so good that demand for land has increased and, as a result, land values have more than risen to offset any reduction due to the effect you describe. Everybody has benefited including the current landowners. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that this has universally or even generally happened in the places where a Georgian land tax was implemented. If such economic growth did happen, you still have the post hoc/propter hoc issue. If economic growth is almost universally increased because this tax is less harmful then other forms of taxes, and that normally causes land prices to go up (more than they would have without such a tax) then the current owner obviously doesn't suffer a net loss, but in a sense the tax is still imposed on the current owner, even if the indirect benefits more than compensate for the tax. Also I don't think the idea that replacing other forms of taxation with this type of tax would increase economic growth, is solidly established, and if it does cause an increase that increase could easily still be less than the more direct negative effects on the property owner. Twfowler 21:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Post hoc/propter hoc is what we base our daily decisions on. It's a useful rule when we are unsure of the underlying mechanism, even if it is sometimes wrong. It's easy to say "It wasn't the penicillin: he was going to recover from the blood poisoning anyway." and difficult to refute, because sometimes people do. But when people always recover from the blood poisoning after being given the penicillin we begin to think that there must be a connection even if we can't see what it is. Here are some historical examples (most of which are LVT-only implementations of the full Single Tax concept) which demonstrate just how effective land value taxation can be in causing economic growth. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monopoly

"Monopoly" (the game) was invented in 1934 by Charles Darrow, not in 1904 as noted in the article. This should be changed, please. There were precursors to the game which influenced it. If so, state that as such. Magie's game was called "Landlord", not monopoly. This is an encyclopedia, and we should be exact. -- mwinog2777

Good point. I've edited that bit. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi,

An encyclopedia is a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject. Accurate and up to date is what you aim for. Exactitude is something for highly calibrated precision test equipment. I would like to help out but I don't want to get too deeply involved so I might just point one of you more experienced folks in the right direction. The Monopoly connection is true. See:http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/202_monopoly.html and download the transcript.

Mark Twain would agree that Henry George was as famous as he was at the time: http://www.henrygeorge.org/archimedes.htm

They had fifteen minutes a piece back then, too. It just seemed longer. Some people claim that Henry George was consigned to the late 19th and early 20th century equivalent of the memory hole, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who is not blind. I'm inclined to agree with that assessment.

Jim Zwick is a Twain Scholar. A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court was a Georgist tome: http://www.boondocksnet.com/twainwww/essays/twain_single_tax9706.html

William F. Buckley, Jr. is a Georgist. CSPAN call in show: http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/buckley_hgeorge.html

CALLER: "I've heard you describe yourself as a Georgist, a follower of Henry George, but I haven't heard much in having you promote land value taxation and his theories, and I'm wondering why that is the case."

W.F.B.: "It's mostly because I'm beaten down by my right-wing theorists and intellectual friends. They always find something wrong with the Single-Tax idea. What I'm talking about Mr. Lamb is Henry George who said there is infinite capacity to increase capital and to increase labor, but none to increase land, and since wealth is a function of how they play against each other, land should be thought of as common property. The effect of this would be that if you have a parking lot and the Empire State Building next to it, the tax on the parking lot should be the same as the tax on the Empire State Building, because you shouldn't encourage land speculation.

Anyway I've run into tons of situations were I think the Single-Tax theory would be applicable. We should remember also this about Henry George, he was sort of co-opted by the socialists in the 20s and the 30s, but he was not one at all. Alfred J. Nock's book on him makes that plain. Plus, also, he believes in only that tax. He believes in zero income tax." -- (added by 24.6.56.233)

Thanks for that, 24.6.56.233. Particularly since you've provided references. It's good stuff and I'll try to merge it into the article for you. As for the Monopoly link, I have spent some time over the years making the Georgist connection with Monopoly clear in the Monopoly article itself. However when one is being precise about the connection, one must make it clear that Monopoly evolved from the Landlord's Game over a period of twenty years, losing the Georgist phase along the way. -- the two games are not identical. But I completely agree that Charles Darrow was not the inventor. Please read our article History of the board game Monopoly for a detailed account of its development. -- Derek Ross | Talk 19:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference by the infamous Senator Dawes

Over a hundred years ago the controllers of the USA plotted to breakup 'Indian Territory' so as to privatize it. Under the pretext of giving each person a fair share of land, an allotment, the real intent was to make the land more accessible to non-native landlords for adding to their estates. In 1883, Senator Dawes, of the infamous Dawes Act and the related Dawes Rolls, toured the lands and...

"After his visit to the 'Five Tribes', Dawes noted of the Cherokee "The head chief told us that there was not a family in that whole Nation that had not a home of its own. There is not a pauper in that Nation, and the Nation does not owe a dollar. It built its own capitol, in which we had this examination, and built its schools and hospitals. Yet the defect of the system was apparent. They have got as far as they can go, because they hold their land in common. It is Henry George's system, and under that there is no enterprise to make your home any better than that of your neighbors. There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization. Till these people will consent to give up their lands, and divide them among their citizens so that each can own the land he cultivates, they will not make much progress." - Redbird Smith and the Nighthawk Keetoowahs [1983 - p. 31] by Janey B. Hendrix

I wouldn't give Henry George credit for 'inventing' the communal culture of the Cherokee just because it was an acknowledged proof of concept for his theory. Qureus1 06:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems

1. This article, as currently written, should include more sources that either analyze or summarize George's work (not just cite it to support their own ideas).

2. This statement-- "George was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a lower-middle class family"-- what the fuck does that mean? Was his family poor? What exactly did his parents do? Seeing as how "lower-middle class" is an American bourgoeois term that relates solely to one's income, not to their relationship with the political/economic superstructure, it seems clear to me that more information is needed so that people can themselves determine George's "class status", regardless of their definitions of what class is or is not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.216.67.213 (talk) 00:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Yes, it fucking should.
2. he was born in amiddle class familly. As you point out, since it doesn't have anything to do with his relationship to the political economic superstructure it simply means he was born to a low income family. Since it only means what it means, rather than what you additionally may think it means, that it somehow relates to the political/economic superstructure, there's no need to add any additional information to this sentence. However, if you feel his political/economic superstructure familial position should be addressed, feel free to reference and add this information. And, yes, just add the well-referenced facts, and people can determine the significance for themselves. KP Botany 01:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Not Verified" template

We need some discussion here about why that template was applied to this article. I am removing since the editor who added the template seems to have left no explanation. DickClarkMises 17:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)