The short path
Ten chapters that carry George's core argument from question to answer. Short notes between the stops say what the skipped chapters establish, so you don't lose the thread. About 2 hours of reading in all.
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IntroductoryThe Problem
George sets out the puzzle the whole book tries to solve: why poverty deepens as wealth grows.
Skipped: Books I and II clear the ground. George argues that wages are produced by the labor that earns them, not paid out of a fixed fund of capital. He then argues that population growth does not cause poverty, because more people produce more for each person. With both standard explanations gone, he turns to how wealth is divided.
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III.2Rent and the Law of Rent
Rent is the key to everything that follows. George defines it and states the law that sets it.
Skipped: In III.3 to III.7, George works out laws of interest and wages that fit with the law of rent. Both depend on what labor and capital can earn on the best land still free to use.
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III.8The Statics of the Problem Thus Explained
The payoff of Book III. If production rises and wages don't, rent has taken the gain.
Skipped: IV.1 to IV.3 show that growing population and better technology both push rent up as society advances.
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IV.4Effect of the Expectation Raised by Material Progress
The third and strongest force: owners hold land out of use while they wait for its price to rise.
Skipped: V.1 argues that this speculation in land sets off the recurring cycle of booms and depressions.
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V.2The Persistence of Poverty Amid Advancing Wealth
George answers his opening question in a single paragraph, then tests the answer against history.
Skipped: VI.1 reviews the popular remedies of his day: cheaper government, education and thrift, unions, co-operatives, regulation, and breaking up large estates. Each fails or helps only a few while land stays private.
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VI.2The True Remedy
The shortest chapter in the book, with the remedy in one line.
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VII.1The Injustice of Private Property in Land
Is the remedy just? George grounds property in labor and argues that land cannot rightly be owned.
Skipped: VII.2 to VIII.1 argue that private ownership of land tends toward the enslavement of labor, that landowners are owed no compensation for the rent, and that putting land to good use needs secure tenure, not private ownership.
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VIII.2How Equal Rights to the Land May Be Asserted and Secured
How to do it in practice: keep the titles, abolish other taxes, and take rent through a tax on land values.
Skipped: VIII.3 and VIII.4 test the land-value tax against the standard rules of good taxation and answer the main objections.
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IX.1Of the Effect upon the Production of Wealth
What happens to production when taxes come off work, building and trade.
Skipped: IX.2 to X.4 trace the remedy's effects on wages, classes and social life, then widen out. Civilizations advance when people work together as equals and decline as inequality grows.
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X.5The Central Truth
George's closing argument, and some of his finest writing.
The Conclusion is a short personal reflection on what the inquiry meant to George. It's worth reading once you've finished the path. Read the Conclusion
The path and the notes between stops are written for this site. In the sidebar, a dot marks each chapter on the path.