THE FALLACIES OF HENRY GEORGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 19, 24 January 1933, Page 6

THE FALLACIES OF HENRY GEORGE.

No book published in the second half of last century—a time famous for the fervour of its controversies—caused more discussion than did "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George. That the work is worthy of the serious attention of present-day students of economics is shown by its inclusion as a reprint in Everyman's Library. While finding myself in complete accord with the opinions expressed therein regarding the social injustice involved in the private ownership of land, the author's enthusiasm for its abolition led him into some very loose reasoning on the subject. In his zeal for nationalisation he did not.sufficiently differentiate between the community-created value of a city site and the value of a farm whose fertility, or capacity to carry stock, is mainly the result of the intelligent husbandry of the farmer himself. Of this value the share of the community is small indeed and. is fully represented by a tax on earned income. Another point over which George stumbled badly was his contention that capital played such a very inferior part in production; indeed, was hardly necessary. One of the headings of a chapter, "Wages Not Advanced by Capital," he himself conclusively disproved by the instance he cited. A shoemaker makin* a pair of shoes requires no capital because, says George, his capital —if the idea of capital.is called in—consists of the leather, thread, etc., needed. Just so, and in a modern shoe factory the cost of the raw material may run into thousands, and even when made into footwear may from a change of fashion or other cause fail to fetch the cost of manufacture. This last contingency is never once considered; the assumption runs right through the book; all manufacturing is profitable; no losses are ever made. George further shows his. shallowness by his contemptuous dismissal of the doctrine of Malthus—than which nothing is more true in socio-economics, else why the different rates of increase of population of different nations at different tfmes? And yet "Progress and Poverty" is a book well worth perusal, if only for its insistence on the principle that the land of a country is the Tightful heritage of the people who inhabit it; and of them colleetivelv as a nation only. • • . "ALEXANDER ERASER.-,