Red
and Blue
... Blue states and blue
counties are generally those where land is out of reach of a high
fraction of the people. ... Read
the whole article
Al Katzenberger: A Synopsis of
Progress & Poverty
Is it not a notorious fact, known to the most ignorant, that developing
communities, where the total wealth is small, but where land is cheap, are
always better
communities for laborers than rich communities, where land is expensive?
Wherever one finds land values relatively low, will one not find wages relatively
high?
Wherever land value is high, will one not find wages low? As land increases
in value, poverty deepens and pauperism appears. Where land is cheap, you
will find no beggars, and the inequalities of condition are very slight.
In the
great cities, where land is so valuable that it is measured and sold by the
square foot, you will find the extremes of poverty and of luxury. And this
disparity in condition between the two extremes of the social scale may always
be measured by the price of land. Land in and near the great cities is valuable,
yet there you will see such great squalor, destitution and misery that you
will
stand aghast. ... read the whole
synopsis
H.G. Brown: Significant
Paragraphs from Henry George's Progress & Poverty, Chapter 4: Land Speculation
Causes Reduced Wages
There is a cause, not yet adverted to, which must be taken into consideration
fully to explain the influence of material progress upon the distribution of
wealth.
That cause is the confident expectation of the future enhancement of land
values, which arises in all progressive countries from the steady increase
of rent, and which leads to speculation, or the holding of land for a higher
price than it would then otherwise bring.
We have hitherto assumed, as is generally assumed in elucidations of the
theory of rent, that the actual margin of cultivation always coincides with
what may
be termed the necessary margin of cultivation — that is to say, we
have assumed that cultivation extends to less productive points only as
it becomes
necessary from the fact that natural opportunities are at the more productive
points fully utilized.
This, probably, is the case in stationary or very slowly progressing communities,
but in rapidly progressing communities, where the swift and steady increase
of rent gives confidence to calculations of further increase, it is not
the case. In such communities, the confident expectation of increased prices
produces,
to a greater or less extent, the effects of a combination among landholders,
and tends to the withholding of land from use, in expectation of higher
prices, thus forcing the margin of cultivation farther than required by the
necessities
of production. ... read the whole chapter
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