Editing Henry George (section)

===Citizen's dividend and universal pension===
George advocated a [[citizen's dividend]] paid for by a [[land value tax]] in an April 1885 speech at a [[Knights of Labor]] [[Local union|local]] in [[Burlington, Iowa]] titled "The Crime of Poverty", and later in an interview with former [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House Representative]] [[David Dudley Field II]] from [[New York's 7th congressional district]] published in the July 1885 edition of the ''[[North American Review]]'':

{{blockquote| As an English friend of mine puts it: No taxes and a pension for everybody; and why should it not be? To take land values for public purposes is not really to impose a tax, but to take for public purposes a value created by the community. And out of the fund which would thus accrue from the common property, we might, without degradation to anybody, provide enough to actually secure from want all who were deprived of their natural protectors or met with accident, or any man who should grow so old that he could not work. All prating that is heard from some quarters about its hurting the common people to give them what they do not work for is humbug. The truth is, that anything that injures self-respect, degrades, does harm; but if you give it as a right, as something to which every citizen is entitled to, it does not degrade. Charity schools do degrade children that are sent to them, but public schools do not.<ref>{{cite book|last=George|first=Henry|author-link=Henry George|year=1901|orig-year=1885|title=Our Land and Land Policy: Speeches, Lectures and Miscellaneous Writings|chapter=The Crime of Poverty|publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday and McClure Company]]|pages=217–218|isbn=978-0526825431}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=George|first=Henry|year=1901|orig-year=1885|title=Our Land and Land Policy: Speeches, Lectures and Miscellaneous Writings|chapter=Land and Taxation: A Conversation Between David Dudley Field and Henry George|place=New York|publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday and McClure Company]]|page=230|isbn=978-0526825431|author-link=Henry George}}</ref>}}

George proposed to create a pension and disability system, and an unconditional [[basic income]] from surplus land rents. It would be distributed to residents "as a right" instead of as charity. Georgists often refer to this policy as a [[citizen's dividend]] in reference to a similar proposal by [[Thomas Paine]].