Compute and Poverty

Progress and Poverty

An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy

Henry George, 1879

The argument in ten steps The short path Memorable lines Capitalist or socialist? Dedication Preface to the fourth edition

Introductory The Problem

I Wages and Capital

Shows that wages are produced by labor, not drawn from capital, which removes the standard explanation of poverty.

  1. The Current Doctrine of Wages—Its Insufficiency
  2. The Meaning of the Terms
  3. Wages Not Drawn from Capital, but Produced by the Labor
  4. The Maintenance of Laborers Not Drawn from Capital
  5. The Real Functions of Capital

II Population and Subsistence

Refutes the Malthusian claim that population presses on subsistence, which shuts off the second standard explanation of poverty.

  1. The Malthusian Theory, Its Genesis and Support
  2. Inferences from Facts
  3. Inferences from Analogy
  4. Disproof of the Malthusian Theory

III The Laws of Distribution

Drawing on the laws of rent, interest and wages, it shows that wages and interest depend on the margin of production, so rising rent explains why progress fails to raise them.

  1. The Inquiry Narrowed to the Laws of Distribution—The Necessary Relation of These Laws
  2. Rent and the Law of Rent
  3. Of Interest and the Cause of Interest
  4. Of Spurious Capital and of Profits Often Mistaken for Interest
  5. The Law of Interest
  6. Wages and the Law of Wages
  7. The Correlation and Co-ordination of These Laws
  8. The Statics of the Problem Thus Explained

IV Effect of Material Progress upon the Distribution of Wealth

It traces how population growth, invention and land speculation each raise rent faster than production, answering why poverty deepens with progress.

  1. The Dynamics of the Problem Yet to Seek
  2. The Effect of Increase of Population upon the Distribution of Wealth
  3. The Effect of Improvements in the Arts upon the Distribution of Wealth
  4. Effect of the Expectation Raised by Material Progress

V The Problem Solved

Having traced the laws of distribution, George applies them to explain industrial depressions and the persistence of poverty amid progress.

  1. The Primary Cause of Recurring Paroxysms of Industrial Depression
  2. The Persistence of Poverty Amid Advancing Wealth

VI The Remedy

George shows that the popular remedies for poverty fail and then names his own: making land common property.

  1. Insufficiency of Remedies Currently Advocated
  2. The True Remedy

VII Justice of the Remedy

George tests his remedy by justice and finds that private property in land is a wrong that should not be compensated.

  1. The Injustice of Private Property in Land
  2. The Enslavement of Laborers the Ultimate Result of Private Property in Land
  3. Claim of Land Owners to Compensation
  4. Private Property in Land Historically Considered
  5. Of Property in Land in the United States

VIII Application of the Remedy

George turns the remedy into a practical proposal, taxing land values in place of other taxes, and shows that it passes the tests of taxation.

  1. Private Property in Land Inconsistent with the Best Use of Land
  2. How Equal Rights to the Land May Be Asserted and Secured
  3. The Proposition Tried by the Canons of Taxation
  4. Indorsements and Objections

IX Effects of the Remedy

Having proposed taking rent through taxation, George shows what the remedy would do to production, distribution, individuals and society.

  1. Of the Effect upon the Production of Wealth
  2. Of the Effect upon Distribution and Thence upon Production
  3. Of the Effect upon Individuals and Classes
  4. Of the Changes That Would Be Wrought in Social Organization and Social Life

X The Law of Human Progress

George tests his economic conclusions against history by finding the general law of human progress and showing it agrees with his remedy.

  1. The Current Theory of Human Progress—Its Insufficiency
  2. Differences in Civilization—To What Due
  3. The Law of Human Progress
  4. How Modern Civilization May Decline
  5. The Central Truth
Conclusion The Problem of Individual Life