What Andrew Carnegie Thought
About Henry George

Jeffery J. Smith

[October 2004]

While trying to find out where steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the richest or second richest man of his era, said: "The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." I went thru four or so of his books.

I could not find any exact wording but did find similar sentiments. I also found explicit criticism of George, in The Empire of Business, 1902, p 103, a chapter which first appeared as an article, "How to Win Fortune", in the New York Tribune, 1890 April 13. There he said Henry George was wrong because the average size farm was in the 19th century getting smaller. In his Problems of Today, 1908, p 161, he wrote the peoples of both America and Canada had denounced Henry George. Yet later in the same chapter on farming he wrote:

"In all other English-speaking countries, the people work the land; in Britain the landlords work the people. When the interests of the masses of the people require change in land tenure, the few owners can justly be required to forego their preferences, or submit to increased taxation if they decide to enjoy privileges injurious to the community as a whole."

He associated Henry George with farmland, not with real estate, about which the cheap old Scot made remarks even more geoist: P 39-40:

"The greatest amount of wealth created in any branch comes from enhanced values of real property. The obvious creator of this wealth is not the individual, but the community. No other form of wealth should contribute to the nation so generously. So when they die, the nation should have a large portion of the honey remaining in the hive, it is immaterial at what date collection is made, so that it comes to the National Treasury at last."

So, he figured rent was owed to society, but he did not want to pay it while alive; instead, let his children to it. Maybe from him the Scots got that old reputation.