Progress and Poverty

Capitalism has blessed the world with wealth and technological miracles. It has also cursed it with urban slums, powerless workers, and the vicious boom-and-bust economy.

Attempts to lessen the problems of capitalism have also lessened its benefits. An overtaxed economy stops producing miracles. Business owners give up, discouraged from making their fortunes, and improving our lives with their products.

If only there were some way to fix the problems of capitalism and keep all its benefits.

In 1897, Henry George published his solution to this puzzle, Progress and Poverty. He suggested that, unlike all other taxes, a tax on land doesn't discourage entrepreneurship. A single tax on land can raise the revenues we need to help the poor without destroying the incentive to create wealth. Socialist goals achieved with capitalism, conservative and revolutionary all at once, George's solution impressed some of the greatest minds in history.

Leo Tolstoy, the legendary novelist and pacifist anarchist, kept a picture of Henry George on his wall. Albert Einstein wrote, “Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice.” The President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, wrote, “Henry George is strong when he portrays the rottenness of the present system,” but he quickly added, “We are, to say the least, not yet ready for his remedy.”

Perhaps now, we are ready for his remedy.

If Einstein was impressed, there must be something to it.

Opening credits music: "Palakiko Blues", recorded by Louise and Ferera, 1917

Closing credits music: "My Old Kentucky Home", recorded by Louise and Ferera, 1915