Editing Henry George (section)

===Political and economic philosophy===
George began as a [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]] [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], then eventually became a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]]. He was a strong critic of railroad and mining interests, corrupt politicians, land speculators, and labor contractors. He first articulated his views in an 1868 article entitled "What the Railroad Will Bring Us." George argued that the boom in railroad construction would benefit only the lucky few who owned interests in the railroads and other related enterprises, while throwing the greater part of the population into abject poverty. This had led to him earning the enmity of the [[Central Pacific Railroad]]'s executives, who helped defeat his bid for election to the [[California State Assembly]].<ref name="anb.org" /><ref name="grundskyld.dk">Henry George, "What the Railroad Will Bring Us," ''Overland Monthly'' 1, no. 4 (Oct. 1868), http://www.grundskyld.dk/1-railway.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120426080607/http://www.grundskyld.dk/1-railway.html |date=April 26, 2012 }} Accessed September 3, 2011.</ref><ref>''Dictionary of American Biography,'' s.v. "George, Henry," 213.</ref>

One day in 1871 George went for a horseback ride and stopped to rest while overlooking [[San Francisco Bay]]. He later wrote of the revelation that he had:

{{blockquote|I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, "I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre." Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilege.<ref>[[Albert Jay Nock|Nock, Albert Jay]]. [https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/in-memoriam-125-years-since-henry Henry George: Unorthodox American, Part IV]</ref>|source=}}

[[File:Henry George.png|thumb|upright|Portrait photo, taken shortly after writing ''Progress and Poverty'']]

Furthermore, on a visit to New York City, he was struck by the apparent paradox that the poor in that long-established city were much worse off than the poor in less developed California. These observations supplied the theme and title for his 1879 book ''[[Progress and Poverty]]'', which was a great success, selling over three million copies. In it George made the argument that a sizeable portion of the wealth created by social and technological advances in a [[free market]] economy is possessed by land owners and [[monopoly|monopolists]] via [[economic rent]]s, and that this concentration of unearned wealth is the main cause of poverty. 
  
George considered it a great injustice that private profit was being earned from restricting access to natural resources while productive activity was burdened with heavy taxes, and he indicated that such a system was equivalent to [[slavery]]. This is also the work in which he made the case for a [[land value tax]] in which governments would tax the value of the land itself, thus preventing private interests from profiting upon its mere possession but allowing the value of all improvements made to that land to remain with investors.<ref>Jurgen G. Backhaus, "Henry George's Ingenious Tax: A Contemporary Restatement," ''American Journal of Economics and Sociology'' 56, no. 4 (Oct. 1997), 453–458</ref><ref>Henry George, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CjcqAAAAYAAJ ''Progress and Poverty,''] (1879; reprinted, London: Kegan Paul, Tench & Co., 1886), 283–284.</ref>

George was in a position to discover this pattern, having experienced poverty himself, knowing many different societies from his travels, and living in California at a time of rapid growth. In particular he had noticed that the construction of railroads in California was increasing land values and rents as fast as or faster than wages were rising.<ref name="grundskyld.dk" /><ref>Charles A. Barker, "Henry George and the California Background of ''Progress and Poverty''," ''California Historical Society Quartery'' 24, no. 2 (Jun. 1945), 97–115.</ref>