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Letter Published
Jan. 9th, 2021 08:11 pmThe Washington Post published a letter of mine today (Saturday, January 9), and here it is, as they printed it:
Georgism isn’t socialism
In his Dec. 31 Style article, “Throwaway lines in the literary life? Not really.,” Michael Dirda described “Progress and Poverty” as “Henry George’s masterpiece of socialist thought.” To the contrary, George rejected socialism, and his masterful analysis of economic problems, a best-seller in the 1880s and still applicable today, includes an analysis of why governmental direction and interference were not the answer to continued poverty and unemployment amid material progress.
Neither a socialist nor a lackey of the robber barons, George favored liberty and free enterprise, but he opposed fortunes built upon special privilege, and, in particular, he advocated a single tax on the value of land and the abolition of other taxes. This would enable people to keep what they earned but not enjoy riches from the possession of land which they had done nothing to create.
Perhaps Dirda has forgotten what he learned in the correspondence course in fundamental economics he took when he was 14. Such a lover of literature as he might wish to try reading “Progress and Poverty” as an adult; it is a literary masterpiece of elegant prose and lucid reasoning.
Nicholas D. Rosen, Philadelphia
The writer is president of the Center for the Study of Economics
I live in Arlington, Virginia, not Philadelphia, but someone apparently looked up the Center for the Study of Economics (I included a link), and saw that it was located in Philadelphia.
Georgism isn’t socialism
In his Dec. 31 Style article, “Throwaway lines in the literary life? Not really.,” Michael Dirda described “Progress and Poverty” as “Henry George’s masterpiece of socialist thought.” To the contrary, George rejected socialism, and his masterful analysis of economic problems, a best-seller in the 1880s and still applicable today, includes an analysis of why governmental direction and interference were not the answer to continued poverty and unemployment amid material progress.
Neither a socialist nor a lackey of the robber barons, George favored liberty and free enterprise, but he opposed fortunes built upon special privilege, and, in particular, he advocated a single tax on the value of land and the abolition of other taxes. This would enable people to keep what they earned but not enjoy riches from the possession of land which they had done nothing to create.
Perhaps Dirda has forgotten what he learned in the correspondence course in fundamental economics he took when he was 14. Such a lover of literature as he might wish to try reading “Progress and Poverty” as an adult; it is a literary masterpiece of elegant prose and lucid reasoning.
Nicholas D. Rosen, Philadelphia
The writer is president of the Center for the Study of Economics
I live in Arlington, Virginia, not Philadelphia, but someone apparently looked up the Center for the Study of Economics (I included a link), and saw that it was located in Philadelphia.
