Henry George and 'Rerum Novarum'

A bstract . Students of the life and thought of Henry George have accepted too readily his own opinion, expressed in the Open Letter that he addressed to Pope Leo XIII in 1891, that the Pope's epoch making encyclical Rerum novarum was aimed at Georgism The disposition of the Open Letter in Vatican circles remains obscure, perhaps because the Holy Office had so recently decided that George's works were deserving of condemnation. But there is documentary support for only an allusion to George's views on property in the encyclical. Nor can the reinstatement of Father Edward McGlynn and the reappraisal of George that it signaled be attributed to the Open Letter. George's views may have had significant indirect influence, however, through (1) national land reform movements insofar as they affected the course of Catholic social thought , and (2) the discussion of Georgism as a form of socialism. These possibilities need to be investigated.     

Henry George, Emile de Laveleye, and the Issue of Peasant Proprietorship

A bstract .   In Emile de Laveleye's demonstration that communal landholding was universally a characteristic of primitive societies, Henry George saw evidence of a golden age before the development of private ownership of land. Though he agreed with George that unequal access to land was a major cause of the social evil of poverty, de Laveleye did not consider it the sole cause of poverty. Where George would nationalize land rent, de Laveleye would make private ownership more widespread; and he faulted George for giving too little attention to the question of how government would use the revenue from a land tax, and for failing to consider the concentration of capital as a cause of poverty.     

Henry George's Land Reform: The Distinction between Private Ownership and Private Possession

Henry George stated that the taxation of land rent would amount to the abolition of the institution of private ownership of land, thereby alienating all those who, whether for economic or ideological reasons, regard the private ownership of land as essential for social order and progress. George believed that under his proposed reform the private ownership of land would be replaced by private possession. But his distinction between ownership and possession appears to have been based on a misconception of the nature of private ownership. His proposed reform could have been more logically described as a conditional, modified, or restricted private ownership of land, rather than as the abolition of private ownership of land.     

A Catholic Response to Henry George's Critique of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum

In Rerum Novarum, the first of the modern social encyclicals, Pope Leo XIII argued that there is a right to the possession of property, but there are limits on the use of wealth. Christians have an obligation to use their property and talents for the good of others. Private ownership must serve not only the interests of the individual but also the public welfare. The disadvantages of private ownership are not to be corrected by socialism, communism, or the free market, but by the teaching of the Church on faith and morals, the laws of the State, and the action of private associations. Efforts to solve the problems of poverty and unjust working conditions will be in vain unless principles of Christian living drawn from the Gospel are taught to people in all ranks of society.     

Léon Walras and Social Justice

A bstract . Léon Walras strongly believed that without an equitable distribution of wealth there could be no social justice. Though he defended the right of private property , he considered that land was a special case and that it belonged to all the community. His social reform involved the nationalization of land , the abolition of taxation on wages , the curbing of monopoly power , and the promotion of a strong cooperative movement. He insisted that the only way the working class could regain their freedom was by becoming property owners. The influence of Henry George on Walras' thinking is obvious. They both shared the same humanitarian ideals, and both believed in a capitalist system working side by side with the social reforms they advocated.     

Henry George and Economic Intervention

A bstract . Henry George , the 19th century American economist and social philosopher , was recognized as an individualist. His Single Tax on the value of land and all natural resources would socialize the rent while preserving private ownership and use. His positions on industrial monoplies were not so clear. He urged the abolition of all special privileges but did not see clearly that this would end many such monopolies. He understated the effects of the single land value tax and the abolition of special privileges; they would go a long way toward ending all industrial monopolies.     

Sun Yat-sen and Henry George:

A bstract . Of Sun Yat-sen's "Three Principles of the People," the third principle, namely the People's Livelihood, forms the ultimate goal for social welfare. In this principle Dr. Sun tried to syncretize the economic theories of the West and adapt them within the Chinese context.
The equalization of land ownership through taxation of self-assessed land values, and the land value increment tax are the most essential ingredients of the third principle. Underlying Dr. Sun's concept of equalization of land ownership is the unearned increment theory of Henry George.
Dr. Sun conceived of agrarian reform as basic to the solution of the livelihood problem. Henry George also saw the cause of distress and destitution in the defective land tenure structure and the monopoly of land.     

Apprehending the Social Philosophy of Henry George

A bstract .   It is the purpose of this essay to consider but three questions regarding the social philosophy of Henry George that have to now received insufficient attention: George's views with respect to the nationalization of land, the efficacy of socialism, and the place of the individual. One may conclude that George is ostensibly an individualist, who nonetheless declares an intent to limit individuality by social restraint; he cherishes the ideals of utopian socialism, while denouncing the directed order; he advocates the nationalization of land, but then is willing to accept private ownership (albeit without aggrandizement). Much is to be done in coming to terms with the fullness of the proposals offered by this social activist and radical philosopher.     

农户城乡“两栖占地”形成因素、退地制度障碍与政策建议——基于“百村调查”样本分析

城乡"两栖占地"形成受土地保障功能牵制、土地收益功能吸引、乡情乡愁牵绊、城乡文化差异阻滞等因素影响。城乡"两栖占地"农户宅基地退出存在宅基地所有权主体虚位、使用权权能残缺、宅基地产权与房屋产权分离、使用权登记制度不完善等制度障碍。"百村调查"结论如下:农村"两栖占地"情况严重;农村"两栖占地"者多为经济实力较强的"能人";影响"两栖占地"农户退地的主要因素是"留恋乡情"。促进"两栖占地"农户退地的政策建议为:民主施政,让宅基地制度改革代表最广大农民的利益;科学施政,让宅基地退出政策更加符合农户愿望;精准施政,让政府宅基地退出行为更加人性化;重建信誉,让农户在宅基地退出中更加拥有获得感。     

Private Property in the Context of Community

The dominant philosophy of private land ownership—that private property exists for the benefit of its owner and that use and ownership should be determined by market forces—is not the only philosophy in the American tradition. Classical republicanism's proprietarian perspective was equally in favor of private property, but held that private property exists for the benefit of society. This article begins by presenting the proprietarian view of private property rights, drawing on the legal scholarship where this perspective has been revived. Next, I use the case of contemporary land reform in Scotland to exemplify the rationale for this perspective. Lastly, I attempt to import the lessons of Scottish land reformers without importing their model, instead considering ways in which private land ownership might be embedded in non‐market institutions in the United States.     

Henry George's Land Reform: A Comment on Pullen

Henry George described his proposal to tax land rent as tantamount to abolition of the private ownership of land . However, Pullen's suggestion that it might better be described as "conditional, modified, or restricted ownership" falls foul of the fact that all ownership is conditional, modified, or restricted in some sense. Whereas, for George, the private ownership of labor products may be positively justified on grounds of equity, and is subject only to conditions that apply to ownership in general, the private ownership of land may be permitted , but only on grounds of social utility, and only if a radical condition (social appropriation of most of its rent) is met that satisfies the demands of equity.     

Henry George and The Reconstruction of Capitalism

A bstract . The moral basis for the recommendation of Henry George that land , not labor and capital, be taxed is explained. The justification is that the value of land is socially created by density of population and as a result of private and public improvements , such as roads and utilities. This policy is advocated on the basis of its very successful, if limited, use in many places. It is contended that the need for many forms of social intervention in the economic process, which have many side consequences, would be dramatically lessened.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . The progressive democratic social philosophy of a 19th century American economist, Henrys George , has had a far-reaching effect on some European intellectual and political leaders. Not all adopted his practical proposal, the single land value tax as a substitute for other taxes. But the British Liberal party , a section of the British Labor party and Danish smallholders did. George's ideas were absorbed into the long standing European land reform tradition and he became the initiator and theoretical founder of the modern movement there, as Heinrich Erman , the German legal scholar, held. It is a mistake to say that the French Physiocrats anticipated George; their produit net was a tax on output, not highest potential use and was aimed to achieve stability , not development. Europeans see George and Georgism the same as Americans but in a different context, that of Natural rights.     

Henry George and Europe

A bstract . In the eyes of European scholars, publicists and politicians who studied Henry George's work, he, as a social philosopher , had adopted the position of the natural law philosophers of the 18th century. The latter inspired the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, as well as the poiitical philosophy of Jeffersonian democracy , the ethos of the 18th and 19th century pioneer settlers. George rejected Social Darwinism. He saw natural law as the only true and reliable basis for a just social order. Like Karl Marx he mastered Ricardian economics ; unlike Marx, George made two factors the basis of his system, labor and land. George saw that each person had a natural right —and a natural imperative for survival —to apply his or her productive capacity to the earth –as living space and as storehouse of nutrients and raw materials. The person-land relationship , he discovered, lay at the basis of human culture. And so the land's rent , now monopolized by the few, had to be appropriated to meet the needs of society, most efficiently and justly by a land value tax.     

Henry George's Political Critics

A bstract .   Twelve political criticisms of George were paramount after he formed his own political party in 1887: (1) his refusal to join with other reformers to link his proposals with theirs, or to absorb theirs into his own campaign; (2) his singular focus on ground rent to the exclusion of other forms of monopoly income, such as that of the railroads, oil and mining trusts; (3) his almost unconditional support of capital, even against labor; (4) his economic individualism rejecting a strong role for government; (5) his opposition to public ownership or subsidy of basic infrastructure; (6) his refusal to acknowledge interest-bearing debt as the twin form of rentier income alongside ground rent; (7) the scant emphasis he placed on urban land and owner-occupied land; (8) his endorsement of the Democratic Party's free-trade platform; (9) his rejection of an academic platform to elaborate rent theory; (10) the narrowness of his theorizing beyond the land question; (11) the alliance of his followers with the right wing of the political spectrum; and (12) the hope that full taxation of ground rent could be achieved gradually rather than requiring a radical confrontation involving a struggle over control of government.     

Joshua K. Ingalls, American Individualist: Land Reformer, Opponent of Henry George and Advocate of Land Leasing, Now an Established Mode

A bstract . Joshua K. Ingalls was a member of a particularly cohesive group of 19th century intellectual iconoclasts in America, the individualists. Two controversies made him widely known at the time: the land reform vs. abolition argument before the Civil War, and his attacks on Henry George in the 1880s over the issue of land reform through tax reform or land reform through land leasing under an occupancy and use system of tenure. Ingalls held George failed to understand the "true" nature of capitalism; rent goes to the landlord as capitalist as reward for his investment; the landowning capitalist appropriates this by his dominion over the land. Though Ingalls' argument did not prevail, land leasing, which he advocated, is the form in which some resources are now disposed of, as in grazing rights and mineral exploration on public land, and in oil exploration rights on the continental shelves; and in the disposition of urban sites such as the site of Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building in New York (the former to the benefit of Columbia University, the latter Cooper Union, both by legislative action).     

Henry George on Land Ownership: A Comment on Pullen

Did George alienate many by presenting his reform program as the institution of a new form of restricted land possession rather than as the retention of traditional ownership with a substantial land tax imposed? It seems doubtful, yet the distinction merits further exploration and the peculiar and hard‐to‐implement nature of the tax and the difficulty of reconciling it with George's distrust of government needs to be stressed. Ideally, George might have preferred complete government ownership of land but his policy proposals were pragmatically adapted to the realities of his own society. The extent of the egalitarianism and aid to the landless implied in his program is questioned.     

Saving the Commons in an Age of Plunder

Land ownership, as commonly understood today, originated with the enclosure movement during the English Tudor era almost four centuries ago. Karl Polanyi referred to this “propertization” of nature as the “great transformation.” That land, water, and air was a social commons is now archaic and forgotten, and with it the classical economic concept of rent, which was, in theory, once paid to royalty as the earth's guardian. Garrett Hardin's article, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” raised alarm about the abuse and loss of this realm, and he recommended constraints and privatization to prevent this. Most people view titles to landed property much as they do their household goods, but Henry George saw that the earth should be seen as a common resource and its value taxed to benefit everyone. This would restore economic equilibrium to market exchanges and pay for government services. The capture of natural resource rents can supplant taxes on wages and capital goods, and it comports with all textbook principles of sound tax theory. This policy can be the modern replacement for the commons, and implementing resource rent capture is both economically and technically feasible.     

国企改革与产权制度创新

改革开放已经进行三十年了,当中有值得称赞的地方,当然也不乏出现了许多问题,尤其是在涉及产权制度改革方面。农村土地所有制改革步履维艰;国有企业改革更是问题重重,等等;这是否说明我们在国企改革当中走了不必要的弯路?通过对改革开放30年来我们在国企改革方面的产权制度创新行为的阐释,从中找出其存在的缺陷和误区。     

On the Centenary of Progress and Poverty

A bstract . Henry George was more fortunate than many authors of classics. His Progress and Poverty won understanding, appreciation and recognition from the start. The book presented a theory of the business cycle based on monopoly of which theorists must take account. It also represented the peak of the development of the classical school. George shared with the school's great figures, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo , a Utopian vision of a free economy. But George went beyond them in envisioning a free society in a new moral order; he was one of the great libertarian philosophers. Moreover, as Teilhac has shown, he projected into economics a social rationalism that opened the way for a reborn political economy based on scientific method. Though his is one of the enduring creations of the human mind which spur the species on to greater cultural achievements, it is, first and foremost, an economic classic. Insofar as George pointed to monopoly and privilege as socially disastrous institutions , his teaching has been adopted by economists everywhere. His doctrine that all men share a common right to the earth now rules space exploitation—that is, the universe —and the deep oceans and it is winning grudging recognition in the one-fourth of the earth humanity inhabits.