Archive for the ‘henry george’ tag
Notes on Poverty and Progress
I’m reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George (the techie in me was happy to find a .pdf file and convert it to mobipocket for my Kindle with the mobipocket creator software) and I found a few clippings I wanted to share.
Investigation reveals that differences in civilization are not due to differences in individuals or races, but rather to differences in social organization. Progress is always kindled by association. And civilization always declines as inequality develops.
Then there’s this…
Unpleasant as it may be to admit, it is at last becoming evident that progress has no tendency to reduce poverty. The great fact is, poverty, with all its ills, appears whenever progress reaches a certain stage. Poverty is, in some way, produced by progress itself.
It’s like a paradox in some ways. As progress goes on the more inequality rises until civilization declines. That is unless you find a way to ensure that progress does not exclude but includes everyone!
