Henry George

“ The fact is that the qualities that raise man above the animal are superimposed on those he shares with the animal, and that it is only as he is relieved from the wants of his animal nature that his intellectual and moral nature can grow. Compel a man to drudgery for the necessities of animal existence, and he will lose the incentive to industry - the progenitor of skill - and will do only what he is forced to do. ”

“ One individual may save money from his wages, and many poor families might be made more comfortable by being taught to prepare cheap dishes. But if the working classes generally came to live in that way, wages would ultimately fall in proportion, and whoever wished to get ahead by the practice of economy, or to mitigate poverty by teaching it, would be compelled to devise some still cheaper mode of keeping soul and body together. ”

“ Better education As to the effects of education, it is evident that intelligence, which is or should be the aim of education, until it induces and enables the masses to discover and remove the cause of the unequal distribution of wealth, can only operate upon wages by increasing the effective power of labour. It has the same effect as increased skill or industry. And it can only raise the wages of the individual in so far as it renders him superior to others. ”

“ It is simply a device to save labour and eliminate risk, and its effect can only be the same as that of the improvements and inventions which in modern times have so wonderfully cheapened and facilitated exchanges - namely, to increase rent. And cooperation in production is simply the substitution of proportionate wages for fixed wages - a substitution of which there are occasional instances in almost all employments. ”

“ Capital not only ceases to earn anything when not used, but it goes to waste - for in nearly all its forms it can be maintained only by constant reproduction. But land will not starve like labourers or go to waste like capital - its owners can wait. They may be inconvenienced, it is true, but what is inconvenience to them is destruction to capital and starvation to labour.
Besides these practical difficulties in the plan of forcing by endurance an increase of wages, there are in such methods inherent disadvantages that working-men should not blink. ”

“ The ideal of socialism is grand and noble; and it is, I am convinced, possible of realization; but such a state of society cannot be manufactured - it must grow. Society is an organism, not a machine. It can live only by the individual life of its parts. ”

“ A reduction in the amount taken from the aggregate produce of a community by taxation would be simply equivalent to an increase in the power of net production. It would in effect add to the productive power of labour just as do the increasing density of population and improvement in the arts. And as the advantage in the one case goes, and must go, to the owners of land in increased rent, so would the advantage in the other. ”

“ The only way wages could be raised to any extent by this method and with any permanence would be by a general combination which should include labourers of all kinds such as was aimed at by the Internationals. But this may be set down as practically impossible, for the difficulties of combination, great enough in the most highly paid and smallest trades, become greater and greater as we descend in the industrial scale.
In the struggle of endurance it must not be forgotten who the real parties are that are pitted against each other. It is not labour and capital. ”

“ For as soon as land acquires a value, wages, as we have seen, do not depend upon the real earnings or product of labour, but upon what is left to labour after rent is taken out; and when land is all monopolized, rent must drive wages down to the point at which the poorest paid class will be just able to live. ”

“ This belief, which at once soothes the sense of nobility and flatters by its suggestion of superiority, is but natural for those who can trace their own better circumstances to the superior industry and frugality that gave them a start, and to the superior intelligence that enabled them to take advantage of every opportunity. ”

“ Why, simply it would become possible to produce the same amount of wealth with less labour, and consequently those who owned the land, the source of all wealth, could command a greater amount of wealth for the use of their land. ”

“ A strike, which is the only recourse that a trade union has for enforcing its demands, is a destructive contest - just such a contest as that to which an eccentric, called "The Money King," once, in the early days of San Francisco, challenged a man who had taunted him with meanness, that they should go down to the wharf and alternately toss twenty-dollar pieces into the bay until one gave in. The struggle of endurance involved in a strike is really what it has often been compared with - a war ”

“ Comparisons between different countries; between different classes in the same country; between the same people at different periods; and between the same people when their conditions are changed by emigration, show as an invariable result that the personal qualities of which we are speaking appear as material conditions are improved, and disappear as material conditions are depressed. To make people industrious, prudent, skilful, and intelligent, they must be relieved from want. If you would have the slave show the virtues of the freeman, you must first make him free. ”

“ Just as industry, economy, or skill may improve the condition of the workmen who possess them in superior degree, but cease to have this effect when improvement in those respects becomes general, so a special advantage in procuring supplies, or a special efficiency given to some labour, may secure advantages which would be lost as soon as those improvements became so general as to affect the general relations of distribution. ”

“ It is labourers on the one side and the owners of land on the other. If the contest were between labour and capital, it would be on much more equal terms. For the power of capital to stand out is only some little greater than that of labour. ”

“ The more complex and extravagant government becomes, the more it becomes a power distinct from and independent of the people, the greater is the difficulty of bringing questions of real public policy to a popular decision. ”

“ If the elaborate schemes for regulating everything and finding a place for everyone could be carried out, instead of an intelligent award of duties and earnings, we should have a Roman distribution of Sicilian corn, and the demagogue would soon become the Imperator. ”

“ Combinations of workmen To raise wages in particular industries or occupations, which is all that any combination of workmen yet made has been equal to attempting, is manifestly a task the difficulty of which progressively increases. For the higher are wages of any particular kind raised above their normal level with other wages, the stronger are the tendencies to bring them back. All that trades unions can do in the way of raising wages, even when supporting each other, is comparatively little and that little moreover is confined to their own sphere. ”

“ These are the substitution of governmental direction for the play of individual action and the attempt to secure by restriction what can better be secured by freedom. It is evident that whatever savours of regulation and restriction is in itself bad and should not be resorted to if any other mode of accomplishing the same end presents itself. ”

“ The consequences that did ensue were a rise of rent and a lowering of wages and, with the potato blight, there followed the ravages of famine among a population that had already reduced its standard of comfort so low that the next Step was starvation.
And so if one individual work more hours than the average, he will increase his wages; but the wages of all cannot be increased in that way. In occupations where working hours are long, wages are not higher than where working hours are shorter ”

“ The temptations to bribery and perjury and all other means of evasion beget a demoralization of opinion and they put a premium upon unscrupulousness and a tax upon conscience. And finally, just in proportion as the tax accomplishes its effect, there is a lessening in the incentive to accumulate wealth, which is one of the strong forces of industrial progress. ”

“ And if, what is manifestly impossible, a fair distribution of the land were made among the whole population, giving to each his equal share, and laws were enacted for interposing a barrier to the tendency to concentration, by forbidding the holding by any one of more than the fixed amount, what would become of the increase of population? ”

“ It is true that improvement in the material condition of a people or class may not show immediately in mental and moral improvement. Increased wages may at first be taken out in idleness and dissipation. But they will ultimately bring increased industry, skill, intelligence and thrift. ”

“ More general distribution of land There is a rapidly growing feeling that the tenure of land is in some manner connected with social distress, but this feeling as yet shows itself mostly in propositions that look to the more general division of landed property. ”

“ So great is the amount of money in politics, so large are the personal interests involved, that the average voter with his prejudices, party feelings and general notions, gives but little consideration to the fundamental questions of government. ”

“ The diffusion of intelligence, except as it may make men discontented with the state of things that condemns producers to a life of toil while non-producers loll in luxury, cannot tend to raise wages generally, or in any way improve the condition of the lowest class.
Greater industry and skill, greater prudence and a higher intelligence are, as a rule, found associated with a better material condition of the working-classes ”

“ The condition of the labourer would not be a whit improved. If landlords were prohibited from asking an increase of rent from their tenants and from ejecting a tenant so long as the fixed rent was paid, the body of the producers would gain nothing. Economic rent would still increase, and would still steadily lessen the proportion of the produce going to labour and capital. ”

“ Greater economy in government Social distress is largely attributed to the immense burdens that existing governments impose - the great debts, the military and naval establishments, the extravagance that is characteristic of republican as well as of monarchical rulers, and especially characteristic of the administration of great cities. ”

“ Governmental direction and interference It is not possible here to examine in detail the methods proposed for mitigating or extirpating poverty through governmental regulation of industry and accumulation, which in their most thorough - going form are called socialistic. ”

“ If, under existing conditions, American mechanics would come down to the Chinese standard of living, they would ultimately have to come down to the Chinese standard of wages; or if English labourers would content themselves with the rice diet and scanty clothing of the Bengalee, labour would soon be as ill-paid in England as in Bengal. The introduction of the potato into Ireland was expected to improve the condition of the poorer classes, by increasing the difference between the wages they received and the cost of their living. ”

“ And so the individual workman who gets his wife and children to assist him may thus increase his income; but in occupations where it has become habitual for the wife and children of the labourer to supplement his work, the wages earned by the whole family do not on the average exceed those of the head of the family in occupations where it is usual for him only to work. ”

“ Wherever the material condition of the labouring classes has been improved, improvement in their personal qualities has followed, and wherever their material condition has been depressed, deterioration in these qualities has been the result. ”

“ Or, if the management is left to the workmen, and the capitalist takes but his proportion of the net produce, it is simply the system that has prevailed to a large extent in European agriculture since the days of the Roman Empire - the colonial or metayer system. ”

“ Now there seems to be an evident connection between the immense sums thus taken from the people and the privations of the lower classes, and it is upon a superficial view natural to suppose that a reduction in the enormous burdens thus uselessly imposed would make it easier for the poorest to get a living. ”

“ And in the free and natural development of all the parts will be secured the harmony of the whole. All that is necessary to social regeneration is included in the motto of those Russian patriots sometimes called Nihilists - "Land and Liberty!" ”

“ While it can have no effect in raising wages or in improving the condition of the lowest classes, its tendency is to prevent the adoption or even advocacy of more thorough-going measures, and to strengthen the existing system by interesting a larger number in its maintenance. ”