1
2
3
| ... because democracy alone is not enough to produce widely shared prosperity. | |||||||
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/dewey_on_henry_george.html AnAppreciation of Henry George John Dewey October 1927 Introduction to "Significant Paragraphs from Progress & Poverty" It was a happy thought of Professor Brown to select and arrangepassages from Henry George's immortal work that give the gist of hiscontribution to political economy and social philosophy, while thepages which follow show that the task has been executed with a skillequal to the idea. The fact that Henry George has an ardent group ofdisciples who have a practical program for reform of taxation hastended to obscure from the recognition of students of social theorythat his is one of the great names among the world's socialphilosophers. It would require lessthan the fingers of the two hands to enumerate those who from Platodown rank with him. Were he a native of some European country,it is safe to assert that he would long ago have taken the place uponthe roll of the world's thinkers which belongs to him, irrespective,moreover, of adherence to his practical plan. But for some reason weAmericans are slow to perceive and celebrate intellectual claims incomparison with the merits of inventors, political leaders and greatindustrialists. In the case of the author of "Progress and Poverty" the failurehas doubtless been accentuated in academic circles by the fact thatHenry George thought, wrote, and worked outside of them. And in theworld at large, in spite of the fact that no works on political economyhave had the circulation and reading obtained by his writings,discussion of the practical merits of his plan of reform of taxationhas actually tended to blur his outstanding position as a thinker. Thishas been the case because the enormous inertia of social habit and theforce of tremendous vested interests have depreciated his intellectualclaims in order to strengthen opposition to his practical measures. I do not say these things in order to vaunt his place as a thinker incontrast with the merits of his proposals for a change in methods ofdistributing the burdens of taxation. To my mind the two things gotogether. His clear intellectual insight into social conditions, hispassionate feeling for the remediable ills from which humanity suffers,find their logical conclusion in his plan for liberating labor andcapital from the shackles which now bind them. But I am especiallyconcerned in connection with Professor Brown's clear and well-orderedsummary, to point out the claims which his social theory has upon theattention of students. No man, nograduate of a higher educational institution, has a right to regardhimself as an educated man in social thought unless he has somefirst-hand acquaintance with the theoretical contribution of this greatAmerican thinker. This is not the time and place, nor is there need, to dwell upon thenature of this contribution. Henry George is as clear as he iseloquent. But I cannot refrain from pointing out one feature of histhought which is too often ignored — his emphasis upon ideal factors oflife, upon what are sometimes called the imponderables. It is a poorversion of his ideas which insists only upon the material effect ofincrease of population in producing the material or monetary incrementin the value of land. One has only to read the third section of theseextracts to note that Henry George puts even greater stress upon thefact thatcommunity life increasesland value because it opens "a wider, fuller, and more varied life," sothat the desire to share in the higher values which the communitybrings with it is a decisive factor in raising the rental value of land.And it is because the present system not only depresses the materialstatus of the mass of the population, but especially because it rendersone-sided and inequitable the people's share in these higher valuesthat we find in "Progress and Poverty" the analysis of the scientistcombined with the sympathies and aspirations of a great lover ofmankind. There have been economists of great repute who in theirpretension to be scientific have ignored the most significant elementsin human nature. There have been others who were emotionally stirred bysocial ills and who proposed glowing schemes of betterment, but whopassed lightly over facts.It is thethorough fusion of insight into actual facts and forces, withrecognition of their bearing upon what makes human life worth living,that constitutes Henry George one of the world's great socialphilosophers. |