Progress and Poverty

“It is true that disappointment has followed disappointment, and that discovery upon discovery, and invention after invention, have neither lessened the toil of those who most need respite, nor brought plenty to the poor.”

Here, Henry George highlights the central issue in this book. Technological advancements in the context of the Industrial Revolution not only created superior products available to the mass market, but also generated unprecedented levels of wealth. Yet, at the same time, progress did not improve the plight of the working class, many of whom lived in poverty and squalor. Thus, George seeks to understand this paradox and offer a solution.

“Production is always the mother of wages. Without production, wages would not and could not be. It is from the produce of labor, not from the advances of capital that wages come.”

To understand why wages have fallen amidst the backdrop of plenty brought about by the Industrial Revolution, George must examine key definitions in economics and the relationships between them. Here, he demonstrates that wages are not furnished by capital but that, in his view, it is labor that produces wages. This distinction is important for him to demonstrate what he considers the real reason behind the decline in wages—the increase in land value.

“The fifty miles of London undoubtedly contain more wealth than within the same space anywhere else exists. Yet were productive labor in London absolutely to cease, within a few hours people would begin to die like rotten sheep, and within a few weeks, or at most a few months, hardly one would be left alive. For an entire suspension of productive labor would be a disaster more dreadful than ever yet befell a beleaguered city.”

The author examines the greatest centers of wealth thanks to the technological development, efficiency, and mechanization of the