New Hampshire Books

The book's subtitle -- An Inquiry in the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth... The Remedy -- describes it beautifully: why we have the ups and downs of our economy, which cause incredible human misery, and why we have increasing poverty at the same time that there is hugely increasing wealth.

And Henry George provides a logical and workable -- even elegant -- remedy, one which will untangle many of the perverse incentives we cope with today: we say we value work, but we tax it. We say we want to promote sales, but we tax them. We say we want to encourage entrepreneurial effort, but we allow huge barriers designed to discourage the person with an idea from being able to execute it. We say we want a society that naturally creates more jobs, but we allow a relative few of us to pocket the funds which would create those jobs. We say we value initiative, but we reward the "dog in the manger" far more than we reward the laborer. We say that urban blight is a bad thing, but our tax code encourages it. We say we dislike urban sprawl, and long commutes, and low wages -- but we've failed to implement the simple tax reform that will correct these ills. We work longer hours than our counterparts in other countries, and have less to show for it. We allow a relative few to own our airwaves, and resell them at higher and higher prices, collecting advertising revenues from all who would run for public office or advertise their products.

If we truly mean to end poverty, to reward initiative, to ensure that the next child born in America is truly the equal of all who are here today, to ensure that our environment is protected for the common good, George's framework for understanding provides the missing puzzle piece.

And as we consider what sort of country we'd like Iraq to be, it is worth considering that if we only give them a constitution without giving them an economic system that considers all people equal, truly equal, we've not accomplished much with the American lives we've lost there.

If we can figure it out for Iraq, with all its oil wealth, maybe we can figure out how to share America justly among Americans, too.

George lays out simply and elegantly what the underlying problem is and how to solve it.

He dedicates the book "To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state and would strive for its attainment." Might you be among those who see and feel, and would strive, if only you could see the source of the problem?

Churchill, Twain, Huxley, Shaw and many others came to see what George was pointing out. Will you?

This one is worth your time!

Get a copy for yourself, and send one to your favorite legislator, be he/she local, state or federal. Then start looking for other Georgists, also known as Geoists. You'll find them a lively group with a vision that might inspire you, too. And it is refreshing to be with people who seek a finer society, not more advantage or privilege -- "private law" -- for their own benefit!

When I have mentioned Henry George, the usual answer has been "Who?" Those who had heard of him mostly thought that his ideas only applied to agrarian societies. In fact, he recognized that land was only one (though the most fundamental) form of monopoly, and he makes it clear that he included all monopolies, not just land, into the realm of the rights of the community rather than a private owner. In this day, he would certainly hhave comments about how the airwaves have been distributed, for example.

The main surprise to me about this book is how completely unknown it has become. Anyone who reads this with an open mind will be convinced by Henry George's arguments.