Henry George: Progress & Poverty: Introductory: The Problem

... I propose in the following pages to attempt to solve by the methods of political economy the great problem I have outlined. I propose to seek the law which associates poverty with progress, and increases want with advancing wealth; and I believe that in the explanation of this paradox we shall find the explanation of those recurring seasons of industrial and commercial paralysis which, viewed independent of their relations to more general phenomena, seem so inexplicable. Properly commenced and carefully pursued, such an investigation must yield a conclusion that will stand every test, and as truth will correlate with all other truth. For in the sequence of phenomena there is no accident. Every effect has a cause, and every fact implies a preceding fact.

That political economy, as at present taught, does not explain the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth in a manner which accords with the deep-seated perceptions of men;

• that the unquestionable truths which it does teach are unrelated and disjointed;
• that it has failed to make the progress in popular thought that truth, even when unpleasant, must make;
• that, on the contrary, after a century of cultivation, during which it has engrossed the attention some of the most subtle and powerful intellects, it should be spurned by the statesman, scouted by the masses, relegated in the opinion of many educated and thinking men to the rank of a pseudo-science in which nothing fixed or can be fixed — must, it seems to me, be due not to any inability of the science when properly pursued, but some false step in its premises, or overlooked factor in its estimates. And as such mistakes are generally concealed the respect paid to authority, I propose in this inquiry take nothing for granted, but to bring even accepted theories to the test of first principles, and should they not stand the test, to freshly interrogate facts in the endeavor to discover their law.

I propose to beg no question, to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow truth wherever it may lead. Upon us the responsibility of seeking the law, for in the very heart of our civilization to-day women faint and little children moan. But what that law may prove to be is not our affair. If the conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch; if they challenge institutions that have long been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back. ... read the entire chapter