Quote#Politics & Power
The primary error of the advocates of land nationalization is in…
Quote byHenry George · 1839–1897
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: A Perplexed Philosopher (1892), Part III : Recantation, Ch. XI Compensation.
English (original)
The primary error of the advocates of land nationalization is in their confusion of equal rights with joint rights, and in their consequent failure to realize the nature and meaning of economic rent… In truth the right to the use of land is not a joint or common right, but an equal right; the joint or common right is to rent, in the economic sense of the term.
— Henry George
More from Henry George
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not only more important to abolish land monopoly than to get rid of the Chinese; but to abolish land monopoly will be to make short work of the Chinese question. Clear out the land-grabber and the Chinaman must …
Now, however, we are coming into collision with facts which there can be no mistaking.
Is it the Chinese? An evil, an unmitigated evil, the presence of the Chinese surely is. But though I fully recognize the dangers of Chinese immigration, and have long protested against it, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that distress of …
There is, and always has been, a widespread belief among the more comfortable classes that the poverty and suffering of the masses are due to their lack of industry, frugality, and intelligence. This belief, which at once soothes the sense …
At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that labor-saving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth …
It is true that wealth has been greatly increased, and that the average of comfort, leisure, and refinement has been raised; but these gains are not general. In them the lowest class do not share. I do not mean that the condition of the …