Progress and Poverty

“Georgism” was an economic movement named after political economist Henry George in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. This loose movement was based on key ideas presented in the extremely popular Progress and Poverty, especially the use of a single tax on privately- owned land to benefit all members of society. The author also disseminated his ideas through speaking tours in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

In his writings, Henry George attempted to solve the key socioeconomic problems of his time. These problems were the decline of wages, uneven wealth distribution, and, therefore, the worsening poverty of the working class. Such problems were of increasing concern despite the technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of wealth, especially in cities. Yet unlike more radical thinkers like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, he did not go as far as to propose a social revolution to end the exploitation of the working class. Instead, George determined that private land ownership, growing land rents, and land-value speculation were to blame for poverty in industrialized societies. As a result, he proposed a single land tax that would effectively abolish private land ownership, boost industrial production by no longer constraining