Henry George's Critics
in the Early 20th Century

Benjamin W. Burger

[Originally published with the title, "A Bachelor of Laws 'Corrects' A Master of Economics." Reprinted from Land and Freedom, July-August, 1935]

The publication of Progress and Poverty in 1879 let loose a flood of criticisms of Henry George. By hundreds, magazine articles, books, tracts, pamphlets, newspaper reviews poured forth, demonstrating George's "errors," and pointing out "fallacies" in his reasoning. More than one hundred have come into the possession of this reviewer, and he has not yet gathered all.

Many critics were not content to expose "flaws," but aimed their poisoned darts at the figure of Henry George. These shall remain nameless.

Today they are forgotten. Only a historian delving into obscure corners, could unearth their names and writings. Progress and Poverty lives on, sound as ever. It has made a profound impression on modern economic thought, and no economic treatise is so widely read. It is studied in our colleges and universities. Harvard, Princeton, University of Illinois, amongst others, (as the reports of The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation show) buy Progress and Poverty in increasing quantities.

A new school of critics has arisen. These, starting out with the admission that whatever economic knowledge they possess was acquired from Henry George, proceed, gently but firmly, to "correct" his reasoning. He being no longer available for personal attack, they now center their fire on his philosophy.

Of this ilk are George Bernard Shaw, whose book, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism we reviewed in these columns in the July-August, 1928 issue, (p. 121).

On another page, our co-worker, Mr. Fowles, competently handles another author who believes George "erred."

Our Australian friends, confusing interest with usury, are certain that George fumbled on that subject.

Most critics of George, while puffing with a sense of their own importance, wind up by exposing their own ignorance of fundamental economic principles.

Now comes "A Tax Talk to Business Men by William J. Ogden, LL.B." (Why is it necessary for our author to reveal that he is a Bachelor of Laws? What especial qualifications in economics does that degree confer?)

Mr. Ogden writes, (pp. 154-155):

"If ever 'truth' was 'crushed to earth,' the great cardinal truth of the Single Tax has so suffered at the hands of its professed authoritative protagonists.

"It is to rescue the truth from a jumble of truth and error, that this little book is written.

"Right here I want to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Henry George. He, more than any other man, opened the way for the Single Tax on land values. The truth that his heart revealed is not destroyed by his manifest error. He will be remembered for his greatness of soul, his self-giving love for humanity, and his powerful presentation of the vital importance of a just system of taxation."

And at page 167, Mr. Ogden humbly writes:

"I have found the solution of his error, and with head bowed in deepest reverence, confess myself his grateful debtor for the revealed truth of the Single Tax, which is herein freed from any taint of Socialism or Communism."

Henry George, writes Mr. Ogden, "simply blundered in a splendid human effort to lead men to the truth." (p. 148).

He erred "in attributing the origin of land value to such a general and indefinite thing as 'population.'" (p. 149).

Will Mr. Ogden tell us when and where George wrote this. It was our impression that Henry George clearly showed that it was the presence and activities of people which produced land values. If population alone made land values, China, with 400 million people, would have higher land values than the United States with 125 million people.

Mr. Ogden contends "that public services are the reason, the source, and the continuance of land values," (p. 70) and that "land values are the products of the services of government." (p. 35).

His reasoning may be judged from this non sequitur:

"Here (in Maryland) our landowners pay taxes on their lands. They therefore earn the increment to their land values." (p. 65).

He repeatedly falls into the common error of referring to the Georgist philosophy as a "tax system." (pp. 83, 86, 107, 112, 154). Rather, it is a philosophy that would abolish taxation. For the community to collect its community-created land values and use them for community needs can never be called taxation. It is but to recognize the difference between "mine and thine" on the one hand, and "curs" on the other.

In writing as I have, I would not be understood as claiming inerrancy for Henry George. He would have been the last one to make such claim. But, I submit, it will take a more astute intelligence than Messrs. Bernard Shaw, Jorgenson, our Australian friends and Mr. Ogden, collectively, possess, to find any lapsi linguae in the numerous writings and speeches of the great master of economic reasoning.

Forty years ago, Mr. Ogden made the same claims in the columns of The New Earth. The editor of LAND AND FREEDOM pointed out to him that land values might exist, and often did exist, independently of public service. Mr. Ogden persists in his fallacy.

And here it will be interesting to quote from that article by Mr. Ogden:

"When I conceive of trade without roads, I may then conceive of land value arising without government service. When distance has been obliterated, and goods can be transferred without a consideration of the elements of time, space or resistance, then rent will disappear, and the dreams of some of our friends realized; but I am inclined to think that as long as we have legs, we'll use 'em, and that roads will always remain, and with them rent."

Well, the very thing Mr. Ogden conceived as impossible, has come to pass. Airplanes can and do carry mail and merchandise, "with- out roads;" "distance has been obliterated" (almost) but land rent keeps increasing.

Why? Because every human activity, even flying in the air, requires land, and those who "own" our earth can charge the users Rent, without rendering any service in return.

Mr. Ogden claims that George failed to perceive that individual right to land value is as clearly defined as individual right to any property produced by an individual.

Evidently our author is unaware that there are six qualities which distinguish land from private property, and therefore stamp it as unique.

1. The earth on which we live was not produced by any human being, but is the free gift of the Creator to all his children.
   
   
2. It is limited in quantity.
   
   
3. It is essential to our existence, because we can produce nothing without it.
   
   
4. It does not owe its value to anything which landowners choose to put upon it.
   
   
5. It owes its value entirely to the presence and activities of the community.
   
   
6. It cannot be carried away or concealed.

Were he clearly to grasp the significance of these distinctions, he would not write:

"A good title to individual ownership in the land and all the value that attaches to it is therefore founded upon the same right of self- ownership that is the foundation of the right to own personal prop- erty." (p. 90).

Mr. Odgen informs us that before his death, Henry George modified his declaration that "private property in land is unjust." (p. 112).

Pray, when and where did this take place? This reviewer is authorized to offer Mr. Ogden $500.00 to substantiate that statement.

Chapter XVIII is entitled "The Error of Henry George." Our author attempts to prove that George made "a fundamental error in omitting the largest and most important factor in production, viz., Government." (pp. 144-145). Mr. Ogden contends that land value is produced by an individual "as truly as was the house and personal property therein." (p. 150).

If this were true, how will Mr. Ogden explain why land values decline when population moves away?

This chapter might more accurately have been entitled "The Errors of William J. Ogden, LL.B."

Mr. Ogden has been familiar with the Georgist philosophy at least forty years, but, as his book amply demonstrates, he has failed to grasp it, not only in its material phases, but in its vastly greater spiritual implications.

Henry George sought to introduce a spiritual condition of equality in a material condition of inequality. Only that which is spiritual is constant; that which is material must ever be inconstant. Our common Mother, the Earth, being material and inconstant, rather than spiritual and constant, does not yield to her children the same wages for the same labor.

Henry George showed how we could approximate a spiritual condi- tion of equality in a material condition of inequality by expressing the inequalities in nature in land rent, and distributing the land rent equally amongst all Earth's children.

For that he will ever be remembered, long after his critics are forgotten.