Henry George

By Frank de Jong, 17 October, 2011

Henry George -- populist before populism was invented

Henry George during his campaign for NYC mayor

I take issue with the final sentence in the below New York Times op-ed. Not only did Georgism account for greed, it was essentially designed as a system to dampen or ameliorate greed, which I would think means the desire (and collection) of more wealth than one deserves.

Greed, in economics, is almost synonymous with rent-seeking. Georgism neutralizes rent seeking (provided new forms of rent are identified and taxed as the greedy invent them). As long as assessment is accurate, greed becomes very difficult to act upon.

Henry George

Henry George was a 19th century American economist. He began with the ethical premise that all people have an equal right to the use of the earth. From that he concluded that exclusive private ownership of land (natural resources) creates unwarranted special privileges. Furthermore, he observed that holding land out of production drives down real wages and the returns to capital equipment. This process is further exacerbated by taxes on production and income that:

•increase unemployment
•discourage productive investment
•encourage unproductive land speculation and rent-seeking

Henry George