GEORGE, HENRY (1839-96). An American economist, born in Philadelphia, Pa. When four teen years old he was forced to leave school, and to seek work in order to support himself. After shipping as foremast boy on a vessel bound for Melbourne and Calcutta, he learned the printer's trade, and in 1858 worked his way to California. At this time the excitement attending the discov ery of gold in the Frazer River, B. C., was at its height; and Henry George worked his way to Victoria on a sailing vessel. After enduring many privations he returned to San Francisco, where he found work in a printing office. As the business of the printing office grew slack, he secured a position in a rice-mill. For the next few years he drifted from one employment to an other, always in financial straits, due to no lack of energy on his own part. In 1861, in company with five other printers, he undertook to publish a daily newspaper, the Evening Journal, but this venture also proved unsuccessful. In 1865 he began to write for the press; and it is noteworthy that one of his earliest productions urges work ingmen to think about political and social condi tions, to find if it be possible to "check the ten dency of society to resolve itself into classes that have too much or too little." At this time he was engaged as a reporter on the San Francisco Times, where he was quickly promoted to the position of chief of staff. In 1866 he wrote a letter to the New York Tribune attacking the Central Pacific Railroad and the Wells, Fargo Express on the ground of their monopolistic ex tortions. In 1869 he wrote for the same paper a letter on the Chinese question, which gained the warm commendation of John Stuart Mill. The great fortunes acquired in California through the rapid increase in the value of land fixed his attention upon the land problem; and in a pam phlet published in 1871, entitled Our Land Policy, he advanced most of the ideas that later appear in Progress and Poverty—that the value of land represents in the main a monopoly power, and that the entire burden of taxation should be levied upon it, thus freeing industry from taxa tion, and equalizing opportunities by destroying monopoly advantage.
Progress and Poverty, George's most important work, was first published in 1879. At first it attracted little attention and found few buyers, but in a few years it attained extraordinary pop ularity, especially in England, where the Irish land problem was the burning question of the day. Interest in the book increased at home, and by 1883 Mr. George found himself regarded as the apostle of a new social creed. From this time his activities were engaged chiefly in lec turing both in America and in the United King dom, and in writing articles for papers and maga zines on the land question and on other economic and political subjects. His literary activities brought him but little pecuniary return, and he remained in straitened circumstances until the end of his life. In 1886 George became a candi date for the mayoralty of New York City, but was defeated by Abram S. Hewitt. In 1896 he again ran for Mayor, but died before election day.
The chief contributions of Henry George to economic science are to be found in Progress and Poverty. The Science of Political Economy, pub lished after his death, contains little that is of value. The main thesis of Progress and Poverty, that economic rent should be confiscated by means of the single tax, has not received accept ance from scientific writers. But the theory of wages which he advanced in opposition to the prevailing "Wages Fund Doctrine," that the la borer is paid, not out of capital, but out of the value which he himself creates, has been adopted by some of the most important economists of the day. For a discussion of the theories of Henry George, see SINGLE TAX and POLITICAL ECONOMY. Consult George, The Life of Henry George (1900).