Editing Henry George (section)

== Views and policy proposals ==
{{Libertarianism US|intellectuals}}

===Socialization of land and natural resource rents===
[[File:Everybody works but the vacant lot (cropped).jpg|thumb|Everybody works but the vacant lot.]]
Henry George is best known for his argument that the [[economic rent]] of land (location) should be shared by society. The clearest statement of this view is found in ''[[Progress and Poverty]]'': "We must make land common property."<ref>{{cite book |last=George |first=Henry |title=Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth |year=1879 |volume=VI |chapter=The True Remedy |chapter-url=http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP26.html |access-date=May 12, 2008 |isbn=0914016601 |publisher=Robert Schalkenbach Foundation |location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lough |first1=Alexandra |title=The Last Tax: Henry George and the Social Politics of Land Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era |url=https://www.academia.edu/4996856 |website=Academia.edu |quote=George only sought to make land common property through the socialization of land rent, or what many have called the "unearned increment" of land value.}}</ref> By [[land value tax|taxing land values]], society could recapture the value of its common inheritance, raise wages, improve land use, and eliminate the need for taxes on productive activity. George believed it would remove existing incentives toward land speculation and encourage development, as landlords would not suffer tax penalties for any industry or edifice constructed on their land and could not profit by holding valuable sites vacant.<ref>Backhaus, "Henry George's Ingenious Tax," 453–458.</ref>

Broadly applying this principle is now commonly known as "[[Georgism]]." In George's time, it was known as the "single-tax" movement and sometimes associated with movements for land nationalization, especially in Ireland.<ref>{{cite web |title=Supplement to Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VlU_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA720 |date=1889 |quote=The labor vote in the election was trifling until Henry George had commenced an agitation for the nationalization of land.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The American: A National Journal, Volumes 15–16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vSEgAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA21 |date=1888|last1 = Thompson|first1 = Robert Ellis|last2 = Barker|first2 = Wharton}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Reception to Mr. George |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C00EEDB1F3EE433A25752C2A9669D94639FD7CF |website=The New York Times |date=October 21, 1882 |quote=Mr. George expressed his thanks for the reception and predicted that soon the movement in favor of land nationalization would be felt all over the civilized world.}}</ref> However, in ''Progress and Poverty'', George did not favor the idea of nationalization.

<blockquote>I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.<ref>{{cite book |last=George |first=Henry |title=Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth |year=1879 |volume=VIII |chapter=How Equal Rights to the Land May Be Asserted and Secured |chapter-url=http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP33.html |access-date=Nov 27, 2016 |isbn=0914016601 |publisher=Robert Schalkenbach Foundation |location=New York}}</ref></blockquote>

===Municipalization of utilities and free public transit===
George considered businesses relying on exclusive [[Right-of-way (property access)|right-of-way]] land privilege to be [[natural monopoly|"natural" monopolies]]. Examples of these services included the transportation of utilities (water, electricity, sewage), information (telecommunications), goods, and travelers. George advocated that these systems of transport along "public ways" should usually be managed as [[public utilities]] and [[Free public transport|provided for free]] or at [[marginal cost]]. In some cases, it might be possible to allow competition between private service providers along public "rights of way," such as parcel shipping companies that operate on public roads, but wherever competition would be impossible, George supported complete [[municipalization]]. George said that these services would be provided for free because investments in beneficial public goods always [[Henry George theorem|tend to increase land values by more than the total cost of those investments]]. George used the example of urban buildings that provide free vertical transit, paid out of some of the increased value that residents derive from the addition of elevators.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Armstrong |first1=K. L. |title=The Little Statesman: A Middle-of-the-road Manual for American Voters |date=1895 |publisher=Schulte Publishing Company |pages=125–127 |url=http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Little_Statesman_1000269333/125 |access-date=January 15, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=George |first1=Henry |title=Throwing His Hat in the Ring: Henry George Runs for Mayor (Acceptance Speech) |url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5321/ |access-date=February 1, 2016 |newspaper=New York World, New York Tribune, New York Star, and New York Times |date=October 6, 1886}}</ref>

===Intellectual property reform===
George was opposed to or suspicious of all intellectual property privilege, because his classical definition of [[land (economics)|"land"]] included "all natural forces and opportunities." Therefore, George proposed to abolish or greatly limit intellectual property privilege. In George's view, owning a monopoly over specific arrangements and interactions of materials, governed by the forces of nature, allowed title-holders to extract royalty-rents from producers, in a way similar to owners of ordinary land titles. George later supported limited copyright, on the ground that temporary property over a unique arrangement of words or colors did not in any way prevent others from laboring to make other works of art. George apparently ranked patent rents as a less significant form of monopoly than the owners of land title deeds, partly because he viewed the owners of locations as "the robber that takes all that is left." People could choose not to buy a specific new product, but they cannot choose to lack a place upon which to stand, so benefits gained for labor through lesser reforms would tend to eventually be captured by owners and financers of location monopoly.

===Free trade===
George was opposed to [[tariffs]], which were at the time both the major method of [[protectionist]] trade policy and an important source of federal revenue, the [[federal income tax]] having not yet been introduced. He argued that tariffs kept prices high for consumers, while failing to produce any increase in overall wages. He also believed that tariffs protected monopolistic companies from competition, thus augmenting their power. Free trade became a major issue in federal politics and his book ''[[Protection or Free Trade]]'' was the first book to be read entirely into the [[Congressional Record]].<ref>{{cite book | last = George | first = Henry | title = The annotated works of Henry George | publisher = Fairleigh Dickinson University Press The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., Robert Schalkenbach Foundation | location = Madison, NJ; Lanham, MD; New York| year = 2016 | isbn = 978-1611477016 }}</ref> It was read by five Democratic congressmen.<ref>Weir, "A Fragile Alliance," 425–425</ref><ref>Henry George, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7qlMAAAAMAAJ&q=protection+or+free+trade ''Protection or Free Trade: An Examination of the Tariff Question, with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor''](New York: 1887).</ref>

In 1997, [[Spencer MacCallum]] wrote that Henry George was "undeniably the greatest writer and orator on free trade who ever lived."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=MacCallum |first1=Spencer H. |title=The Alternative Georgist Tradition |journal=Fragments |date=Summer–Fall 1997 |volume=35 |url=http://www.cooperative-individualism.org/maccallum-spencer_alternative-georgist-tradition-1997-02.pdf |access-date=October 30, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304071947/http://www.cooperative-individualism.org/maccallum-spencer_alternative-georgist-tradition-1997-02.pdf |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

In 2009, [[Tyler Cowen]] wrote that George's 1886 book ''[[Protection or Free Trade]]'' "remains perhaps the best-argued tract on free trade to this day."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cowen |first1=Tyler |title=Anti-Capitalist Rerun |journal=The American Interest |date=May 1, 2009 |volume=4 |issue=5 |url=http://www.the-american-interest.com/2009/05/01/anti-capitalist-rerun/ |access-date=November 15, 2014}}</ref>

[[Jim Powell (historian)|Jim Powell]] said that ''Protection or Free Trade'' was probably the best book on trade written by anyone in the Americas, comparing it to [[Adam Smith]]'s ''[[Wealth of Nations]]''. [[Milton Friedman]] said it was the most rhetorically brilliant work ever written on trade.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Powell|first1=Jim|title=Milton Friedman's Favorite Book on Trade|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/milton-friedmans-favorite-book-on-trade-1465597043|access-date=March 17, 2018|agency=Wall Street Journal|date=June 11, 2016}}</ref> Friedman also paraphrased one of George's arguments in favor of free trade: "It's a very interesting thing that in times of war, we blockade our enemies in order to prevent them from getting goods from us. In time of peace we do to ourselves by tariffs what we do to our enemy in time of war."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Obenhaus|first1=Matthew|title=Free Trade Lessons for the Economically Challenged|url=https://gymnasiumsite.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/free-trade-lessons-for-the-economically-challenged/|website=The Gymnasium|access-date=March 17, 2018|date=March 7, 2016}}</ref>

===Secret ballot===
[[File:George de Forest Brush - Henry George - NPG.67.53 - National Portrait Gallery.jpg|thumb|Artist: [[George de Forest Brush]], Sitter: Henry George, Date: 1888]]

George was one of the earliest and most prominent advocates of the [[secret ballot]] in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/13/081013fa_fact_lepore |title=Rock, Paper, Scissors: How we used to vote |first=Jill |last=Lepore |author-link=Jill Lepore |work=New Yorker |date=October 13, 2008}}</ref> [[Harvard]] historian [[Jill Lepore]] asserts that Henry George's advocacy is the reason Americans vote with secret ballots today.<ref name="nytimes.com" /> George's first article in support of the secret ballot was entitled "Bribery in Elections" and was published in the ''Overland Review'' of December 1871. His second article was "Money in Elections," published in the ''North American Review'' of March 1883. The first secret ballot reform approved by a state legislature was brought about by reformers who said they were influenced by George.<ref>{{cite book |last=Saltman |first=Roy |title=The history and politics of voting technology : chads and other scandals |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Basingstoke |year=2008 |page=97 |isbn=978-0230605985}}</ref> The first state to adopt the secret ballot, also called The Australian Ballot, was Massachusetts in 1888 under the leadership of Richard Henry Dana III. By 1891, more than half the states had adopted it too.<ref>For a more complete discussion of the adoption of the Australian Ballot, see Saltman, Roy G., (2006), ''The History and Politics of Voting Technology,'' Palgrave Macmillan, NY, pp.&nbsp;96–103.</ref>

===Money creation, banking, and national deficit reform===
George supported the use of "debt free" (sovereign money) currency, such as the [[United States Note|greenback]], which governments would spend into circulation to help finance public spending through the capture of [[seigniorage]] rents. He opposed the use of metallic currency, such as gold or silver, and fiat money created by private commercial banks.<ref>"To illustrate: It is not the business of government to interfere with the views which any one may hold of the Creator or with the worship he may choose to pay him, so long as the exercise of these individual rights does not conflict with the equal liberty of others; and the result of governmental interference in this domain has been hypocrisy, corruption, persecution and religious war. It is not the business of government to direct the employment of labor and capital, and to foster certain industries at the expense of other industries; and the attempt to do so leads to all the waste, loss and corruption due to protective tariffs."

"On the other hand it is the business of government to issue money. This is perceived as soon as the great labor saving invention of money supplants barter. To leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue money would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. These obvious considerations have everywhere, as society became well organized, led to the recognition of the coinage of money as an exclusive function of government. When in the progress of society, a further labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the substitution of paper for the precious metals as the material for money, the reasons why the issuance of this money should be made a government function become still stronger. The evils entailed by wildcat banking in the United States are too well remembered to need reference. The loss and inconvenience, the swindling and corruption that flowed from the assumption by each State of the Union of the power to license banks of issue ended with the war, and no one would now go back to them. Yet instead of doing what every public consideration impels us to, and assuming wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the General Government the power to issue money, the private interests of bankers have, up to this, compelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of which a large part, though guaranteed by the General Government, is issued and made profitable to corporations. The legitimate business of banking{{snd}}the safekeeping and loaning of money, and the making and exchange of credits{{snd}}is properly left to individuals and associations; but by leaving to them, even in part and under restrictions and guarantees, the issuance of money, the people of the United States suffer an annual loss of millions of dollars, and sensibly increase the influences which exert a corrupting effect upon their government." ''The Complete Works of Henry George''. "Social Problems," p. 178, Doubleday Page & Co, New York, 1904 {{ISBN?}}</ref>

===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]].

===Bankruptcy protection and an abolition of debtors' prisons===
George noted that most debt, though bearing the appearance of genuine capital interest, was not issued for the purpose of creating true capital, but instead as an obligation against rental flows from existing economic privilege. George therefore reasoned that the state should not provide aid to creditors in the form of sheriffs, constables, courts, and prisons to enforce collection on these illegitimate obligations. George did not provide any data to support this view, but in today's developed economies, much of the supply of credit is created to purchase claims on future land rents, rather than to finance the creation of true capital. [[Michael Hudson (economist)|Michael Hudson]] and [[Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell|Adair Turner]] estimate that about 80 percent of credit finances real estate purchases, mostly land.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/UVQdeb0EdWA Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180309114848/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQdeb0EdWA Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web |last1=Turner |first1=Adair |title=A new era for monetary policy |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVQdeb0EdWA&t=994 |date=April 13, 2012 |location=Berlin |publisher=INET |access-date=January 15, 2016}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hudson |first1=Michael |title=Scenarios for Recovery: How to Write Down the Debts and Restructure the Financial System |url=http://nowandfutures.com/large/HowToWriteDownTheDebtsAndRestructureTheFinancialSystem-hudson-michael-berlin-paper.pdf |access-date=January 15, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304080443/http://nowandfutures.com/large/HowToWriteDownTheDebtsAndRestructureTheFinancialSystem-hudson-michael-berlin-paper.pdf |archive-date=March 4, 2016  }}</ref>

George acknowledged that this policy would limit the banking system but believed that would actually be an economic boon, since the financial sector, in its existing form, was mostly augmenting rent extraction, as opposed to productive investment. "The curse of credit," George wrote, was "... that it expands when there is a tendency to speculation, and sharply contracts just when most needed to assure confidence and prevent industrial waste." George even said that a [[debt jubilee]] could remove the accumulation of burdensome obligations without reducing aggregate wealth.<ref>{{cite web |last1=George |first1=Henry |title=Consequences of a Growing National Debt |url=http://www.cooperative-individualism.org/george-henry_consequences-of-a-growing-national-debt-1888.htm |access-date=January 15, 2016}}</ref>

===Women's suffrage===
George was an important and vocal advocate of women's political rights. He argued for extending suffrage to women. George wrote, "The cause of woman suffrage is steadily, though slowly and quietly making progress in public opinion. In a large and ever widening circle the women who want to vote are no longer deemed masculine nor the men who would have them vote, effeminate. The goal has not been reached and may yet be far off, but since the first woman’s rights convention was held in the United States forty years ago, great advances have been made.."<ref>George, Henry, and Kenneth C. Wenzer. ''An Anthology of Henry George's Thought''. Rochester, NY. University of Rochester Press, 1997.</ref>

===Other proposals===
{{More citations needed section|date=July 2017}}
Henry George also proposed and advocated the following reforms:
* Dramatic reductions in the size of the military.
* Replacement of contract patronage with the direct employment of government workers, with civil-service protections.
* Building and maintenance of free libraries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brechin |first1=Gray |title=Indestructible By Reason of Beauty: The Beaumanance of a Public Library Building |date=2003 |publisher=Greenwood Press |url=http://graybrechin.net/_docs/books/Indestructible-by-Reason-of-Beauty-Gray-Brechin.pdf |access-date=December 23, 2014}}</ref>
* Campaign finance reform and political spending restrictions.
* Careful regulation of all monopolies. George advocated regulations to eliminate monopolies when possible and government ownership of monopolies as a policy of last resort.