The Gilded Age
Henry George - Political Economist
History
20
Deborah L. Larnor
Henry
George’s Proposal and Its Impact on Economic and Social Life in the Gilded Age
In the 1870s, there was
an economic depression. After the economic depression, Henry George an American
political economist struggled to understand how an era of exceptional economic
growth and industrial production could cause widespread poverty, financial
panic, unemployment and inequality of wealth by investigating the issue. By the
time George finished his investigation on the economic disaster, he came out
with a book titled Progress and Poverty
in 1879. This book challenged the accepted policies of property rights and
laissez-faire. It changed the way many people thought about and understood the
political economy. In George’s book, he proposed a solution to economic
inequality and industrial depression problems. My focus in this paper is to
discuss George’s economic impact in the Gilded Age.
On September 2nd, 1839 Henry
George was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the age 14 years, George
left school and went to sea in 1855. In 1858, George reached California and
settled over there. He was a California typesetter, printer, social and land
reformer, political economist and journalist. By 1860s, he was a writer for
the San Francisco Times and a
reporter for the San Francisco Post. He
later owned the San Francisco Evening
Post. In 1879, George published Progress
and poverty and issued in New York and London. This book in no time
acquired world-wide reputation. In this book, George proposed the “single tax”
that promoted economic and social growth in the 1880s. He later moved to New
York and then became a candidate of the United Labor Party for New York mayor
in 1886. George died in New York on October 29th, 1897 (D. Appleton and Company) .
By the end of the
nineteenth century, the book Progress and
Poverty had the best-selling both in the United States and the international
market. As a result, it evoked the global land reform movement about dealing
with poverty in the modern industrial world. Henry George made a proposal known
as the ‘single tax’ as a solution to the economic inequality and the industrial
depression problems. The single tax was not like the general property tax that
taxed both the value of real estate and the personal property. But, single tax
applied to the full value of land. The land would be taxed according to the value
of its natural resources and its use. George believed that taxing land values
only
could generate all revenue needed to operate government. It would produce
greater levels of opportunity, enrich the government and its programs,
eliminate hardship, and strengthen productive life. Since the economic hardship
was the problem during the gilded age, the book drew people’s attention to the
problem and changed how people thought and understood the political economy.
His idea gave excitement and inspired many people. Also, the book gave
solutions to an unequal worth problem and the distribution of land that was a
key component of the Gilded Age. George believed that the single tax would lead
to land ownership as a common property more than an individual property (George
Jr.) .
In the early of 1880s,
the professional discipline of economic changed due to the way George’s work
gained popular attention. It threatened the growing number of professional economists.
It led an effort to reinforce the studies of political economy in the United
States. Based on George’s social ethics, religious leaders in U. S and Great
Britain were inspired to question the morality of social and economic policy. George’s
book helped
to change the course of economic thought and discussion in the United States. In
challenging the classical economic theories about the causes of poverty and low
wages, Progress and Poverty helped
transform the perception of political economy as a depressing science and
renewed interest in the study of the laws and processes that govern economic
activity. Due to that, college and university professors
could not ignore George Henry’s book (Newton, 1971) .
In conclusion, George
proposed a deceptively simple solution to the problems of economic inequality
and industrial depression after the Gilded Age. His book was contrast to other
social commentators of his era, who attributed economic disruptions to
overproduction or unsound monetary policies, Henry George singled out one of
the most cherished institutions of liberal capitalist societies: private property in land.
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| The picture shows The Great Labor Parade of September 1 of the Gilded Age |
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| Henry George, political economist and author of Progress and Poverty by Karl Marx |
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| This picture is a cover page of Henry George Jr.’s book |
Bibliography
Cord, S. B. (1965). Henry George: Dreamer or
Realist? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
D. Appleton and Company. (1888). Biography of
Henry George - 1839-1897. Retrieved from
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist9/hgeorge2.html
George Jr., H. (1900). The life of Henry George.
New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
Newton, B. (1971). The Impact of Henry George on
British Economists, I.: The First Phase of Response, 1879-82; Leslie,
Wicksteed and Hobson. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 30,
179-186. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1971.tb02957.x.
Pictures From:
Pictures From:
“http://www.woodshistory.com/industrialization-and-the-gilded-age.html”
“http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.com/2014/08/karl-marx-on-henry-george_6.html”
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