In every civilized country pauperism, crime, insanity, and suicides are increasing. He then proposed his remedy: to declare all land as common property. The arrow symbol more appropriately describes a flow process. His observation is no different than how a conqueror or politician views land titles. New York: Hill and Wang. That distribution is only an aggregate description, and provides no basis to determine how any specific individual will use wealth. Yet, currency inflation, compound interest, and land monopoly are not the only elements causing social ills.
Thus, George cannot be blamed for conducting his research within the boundaries of the of his day and focusing on individual elements. Unfortunately, politicians and special interests routinely debase those currencies, thereby eroding the future wealth exchange power of that currency. Although normal and natural, speculation is additionally fueled by currency inflation — the dwindling of future exchange power. This problem was most noticeable with Congress awarding huge land tract titles to railroad company owners as a means to encourage railroad expansion. However, George wandered astray by declaring he need focus only on the distribution side of the flow of wealth.
There also is unintended consumption waste. That would force all titleholders into continual material production in order to prove usage — enslavement. Additionally, all wealth is subject to decay and must be replaced even when not directly consumed. And it is impossible to do other-wise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree. However, one also must add that as long as politicians and bureaucrats maintain an artificial scarcity in land titles, then no ground rent is justified then either. Thus, although a proponent of free markets, George nonetheless believed a ground rent tax would resolve his enigma of inadequate land title distribution because human labor is not involved in producing land. Addresses at the funeral of Henry George, Sunday, October 31, 1897.
A by James Busey keeps George's magnificent language. Treat this retainer as you would a fee. . And hence, no matter what be the increase in productive power, if the increase in rent keeps pace with it, neither wages nor interest can increase. Human beings in the most abject, most helpless and hopeless condition, are in the great cities of the U. Perhaps the reason is the way new ventures are capitalized in the Industrial Age — by the instant creation of currency through the political privilege of banking. Yet, not once does George recognize or discuss how a monetary system influences that growth and demand.
His remedy would not resolve the problems of political faction that disrupts natural energy flows by coercively redistributing wealth in various forms. He expected to use a process of elimination reductionism to arrive at the cause of his enigma. Comparing a process labor to the results of that process wealth is comparing apples and oranges. Everywhere the increasing intensity of the struggle to live, the increasing necessity for straining every nerve to prevent being thrown down and trodden under foot in the scramble for wealth, is draining the forces which gain and maintain improvements. There is nothing strange or inexplicable in to phenomena that are now perplexing the world. He assumed that rent always would increase by the same 1:1 magnitude that wealth increases. Mathematical equations provide variable magnitudes, which might be linear, non-linear, proportional, exponential, or might be dependent upon the time domain.
Wealth — stored energy — is what is returned, not labor. Although land title distribution by political privilege is a fundamental problem, land value speculation is caused primarily by using a monetary exchange system. Throw in the complexity of exponential compound interest and currency inflation and that new system looks nothing like what George discussed. Land always will command a rent in any densely populated area of people, and less so in sparsely populated areas. Additionally, as already mentioned, George ignored the production of wealth and the feedback mechanism of capital, which affects the distribution of wealth.
Humans can do only one thing at a time. Unless human nature has suddenly altered in what the universal history of the race shows to be its deepest characteristics, the mightiest actions and reactions are thus preparing. Yet, such a process likely would not propagate if the land buyer had to provide genuine goods and services rather than offer currency. Regardless of the source for that usage fee — land, labor, or capital — create a shortage and usage fees will rise. George cannot change his system identity as he did — he created a new system. George believed his ground rent tax would provide that remedy.
All structures and dwellings on land would be exempt from taxation, and he thought no other tax would be necessary to finance commonly used goods and services. George spends the remainder of this section refining his thoughts about the relationship of rent, wages, and interest. Neither its influence nor its sales can be completely measured; but Frank Luther Mott, in his study of best-sellers, finds credible a worldwide estimate of two million copies sold and thinks that an estimate of the American sales to 1947 of 700,000 or 800,000 is conservative. The personal property which they have cannot be as readily concealed or undervalued as can the more valuable kinds which are concentrated in the cities. He was partially correct in deciding that overcoming poverty would be difficult as long as land titles were monopolized. When currency is used that natural limit is bypassed because of compound interest, and forces the borrower into an extreme situation of overproducing. If it spring not from man himself, from what can it spring? The farmer would be a gainer by the substitution of a single charge upon the value of his or her location instead of all these taxes.
Why, when humanity was progressing materially forward and generally improving the overall health and increasing the overall wealth of all people, did poverty remain? That proposal is where many people lay the foundation for accusing George of being a socialist or Marxist. That land was held in common in past societies is simply an observation of circumstances and nothing else. George never acknowledged the tremendous leverage that is possible from a politicized monetary exchange system where capitalization is possible not by first producing capital wealth but through creating currency by monetizing debt. Because of these shifts in supplying subsistence needs, many parcels of land today are maintained solely as residences, and play no role in determining any level of cultivation or productive utility. Set first two sticks myself.
This is the nature of studying complex systems. Only a specific individual can decide if the wealth received was derived through rent, wages, or interest. This is evident because George ignored the monetary exchange system. If he had ended his book with the first chapter of this section, he would have shown that economics theorists had failed to properly define and distinguish their terms, and thereby introduced much confusion into their field of study. The wide-spreading social evils which everywhere oppress men amid an advancing civilization spring from a great primary wrong-the appropriation, as the exclusive property of some men, of the land on which and from which all must live. All land titles are a result of human social and legal systems. Thus, not having access to capital necessarily implies not producing at the same capacity possible when using that capital in production.