From Poverty to Politics: Henry George | The Gilded Age

Henry George’s message about the haves and the have nots helped ignite a movement that swept the nation.
The Gilded Age premieres Tuesday, February 6 at 9/8c on PBS. Learn more at to.pbs.org/2E1N0Tf.

[@nthperson]

I include Henry George as a key philosopher of principles known as "cooperative individualism." In 1997 I established an online education and research project called the School of Cooperative Individualism to introduce these ideas and principles to thoughtful persons.

[@SuperGreatSphinx]

Henry George (September 2, 1839 - October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in the 19th century, and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. His writings also inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism, based on the belief that people should own the value they produce themselves, but that the economic value derived from land (including natural resources) should belong equally to all members of society.
His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), sold millions of copies worldwide, probably more than any other American book before that time. The treatise investigates the paradox of increasing inequality and poverty amid economic and technological progress, the cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of rent capture such as land value tax and other anti-monopoly reforms as a remedy for these and other social problems.
The mid-twentieth century labor economist and journalist George Soule wrote that George was "By far the most famous American economic writer," and "author of a book which probably had a larger world-wide circulation than any other work on economics ever written."

[@dlotable]

The future is Georgism

[@tompogson9755]

His ideas of going after the unimproved value of land which belongs to all would eventually lead to the Georgist movement. One Georgist in particular, Lizzie Magie would create an educational game that led to one of the most famous games of all time...Monopoly.

[@marccronje8325]

They don't even mention the Land Value Tax ffs smh 🤦‍♂️

[@slipperydoorknob2173]

This is the most reductive overview of Henry George, this is in no way educational. You didn't mention how he acknowledged how land speculation to be the foremost factor of wealth inequality and how he proposed to redistribute the wealth from land back to the citizens who created the wealth. Instead you paint him as some anti-industrialist socialist when in actuality he was the most "capitalistic" economist to ever live.

[@zico739]

What you’re describing of him is not even remotely capitalist.

[@rickysanders6487]

@@zico739
George essentially sought a return to classical economics, which treats land as a distinct mode of production alongside capital and labor. He was a capitalist, in the sense that he believed taxes and central planning shouldn't affect the market, but he also believed that the wealth of land (what economists call "rent") should be socialized because communities ultimately generate its value.
Karl Marx himself went as far as saying George's proposal was "capitalism's last ditch". OP could've elaborated more (and it's inaccurate to say "he was the most capitalistic economist to ever live") but he's basically right. This video was a very reductive take on Henry George.

[@nerva-]

@@rickysanders6487agreed - it's what happens when TV productions are dominated by woke progressives who see everything through only that lens. George doesn't fall into the obvious left/right classifications, and while people's knee-jerk reaction is to view his "redistributionist" approach as socialist, it wasn't.