Generally Discrediting David Harvey
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Karl Marx on Henry George
Letter of June 20 1881 to Friedrich Sorge in New York
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…Theoretically, Henry George is utterly backward.
He has no inkling of surplus value, and so wanders about in the superseded English fashion by speculating about its component parts as if they had an independent existence—about the relations between profit, rent, interest, etc.
His fundamental dogma is that everything would be just fine if Ground Rent were paid to the State.
This idea was first conceived by bourgeois economists, being advanced (if we disregard a similar demand at the end of the 18th century) by the radical followers of David Ricardo, soon after his death.
As I wrote back in 1847 in my anti-Proudhon book [The Poverty of Philosophy]: “We can understand why economists such as James Mill have demanded that Ground Rent should be paid to the State as a substitute for Taxes. This is a frank expression of the hatred of the Industrial Capitalist for the Land Owner, who appears to him as useless—superfluous to the scheme of bourgeois production.”
We [Marx and Engels] made the appropriation of Ground Rent by the State one of the transitional demands in the Communist Manifesto, where we remarked that transitional demands could only be contradictory measures in themselves.
But, turning this desideratum of the English radical bourgeois economists into a socialist PANACEA and declaring Land Tax to be the solution to all the antagonisms inherent in the present [capitalist] mode of production was the prerogative of [economist] Jean Colins, who proclaimed this great ‘discovery’—his ‘anti-landed property theory’—which has since been advocated month after month by his remaining disciples, who call themselves ‘collectivistes rationnels’ [rational collectivists] and who, naturally, applaud Henry George.
All “socialists” who support a Land Tax scheme have this in common—they aim to leave wage labour and hence the capitalist mode of production in existence, while bluffing themselves and others that if Ground Rent were transformed into a State Tax all the abuses of capitalist production would disappear.
The whole scheme is a squib, decked out as socialism, to save the capitalist régime and, indeed, to bolster it on an even broader basis.
This self-same cloven hoof (at the same time ass’s hoof) is unmistakably revealed in the declamations of Henry George.
And coming from an American it is all the more unpardonable. Henry George should have asked himself the opposite question: How did it come about that in the UNITED STATES, where land was relatively — i.e. by comparison with civilised Europe — available to the great mass of the people and TO A CERTAIN DEGREE (again relatively) still remains so, that capitalist economy and its corresponding enslavement of the working class have developed even more rapidly and shamelessly than in any other country?
On the other hand, George’s book, like the sensation it created in your circles, is significant because it is a first, if unsuccessful, attempt at theoretical emancipation from orthodox [bourgeois] political economy.
For the rest, Henry George does not seem to know anything about the history of the early American ANTI-RENTERS [the great land-grabbers] who were rather practical men than theoretical. In other respects he is a talented writer (with a talent for YANKEE aggrandisement too) as proven by his article on California in the Atlantic.
Naturally Henry George exudes the repulsive presumption and arrogance that is the telltale hallmark of all PANACEA-mongers without exception.
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(My translation)
Proudhon had the same economic proposition as Henry George, and there is a school of economics of Henry George in New York, and Harvey has been influenced by that school and philosophically he is like the Marxist Humanists who think that Marx’s capital is all Hegel dialectic, he is just another Richard Wolff who has studied Marx capital, but has distorted it. In the USA land is controlled by an enormous capitalist enterprise including Bill Gates and his investment, and many black family’s lands have been expropriated and taken out of the land, in the same way, that it was done with Mexican landowners in California
“All “socialists” who support a Land Tax scheme have this in common—they aim to leave wage labour and hence the capitalist mode of production in existence, while bluffing themselves and others that if Ground Rent were transformed into a State Tax all the abuses of capitalist production would disappear.”
Say that again, Karl! The same applies to other single reform reformists such as Gesell.
Meanwhile here’s what Keynes said about Gesell. Good point at the end that, if ordinary money lost value if not spent in time, substitutes would be found, but what’s the point anyway?
I agree with you 100%. I bring up George and Gesell not because I think they are solutions, but rather to mark the spot were private property begins to encroach on the lives of all in society; to show where the zero sum relationship that private property has with society plants itself. They are the beginning of the critique of capitalism not the end.
As Marx pointed out in that letter, Henry George was not the first to realise that landowners were able to use their position of monopolising a piece of desirable land to extract wealth for nothing.
But it wasn’t from the workers who produced it, but from their capitalist employers who had already stolen it from their workers. In other words, it was an argument between two robbers over a share of stolen booty — in which the workers had no interest in taking sides.
In any event, George was not a critic of capitalism but thought it would be ok if the landowners’ rents were taxed away. He criticised landlordism because it distorted the workings of the free market. It did, but so what?
In short, he had nothing useful to offer, not even the beginnings of a critique of capitalism.
alanjjohnstone
Keymaster
I have heard of Henry George, as had Marx and Engels.Then there is Major Douglas’s scheme
Henry George and Proudhon are similar, both are based on Land Reforms like Emilio Zapatas. I met several follower of Henry George who were right wingers and anti Marxists, and defenders of capitalism, he was not an anticapitalist, and he did not even made any critique against capitalism, there is nothing useful for the working class on the works of Henry George. I have read his book Progress and Poverty
You are correct, they are pro-capitalism and anti-socialist and anti-communist. I am in email threads with them, arguing for socialism and also arguing for using Henry George as a first step towards learning about the role of private property in the immiseration of the planet. I know Marx and Engels understood George. Like I said earlier, I’m not advocating George as an ends. I believe he is useful in unraveling how profits are made in capitalism so that when presenting socialism to people in the general public, they have something to grab onto and use as a reference.
People who don’t try to talk to the general public are free to be orthodox purist and live a pristine lifestyle. If, however, one chooses to go outside one’s comfort zone and speak to people whose default position is mainstream, then you will find that you need conversational tools to peak their curiosity and enable them to feel that they have derived the conclusion that socialism is the logical choice.
Dealing with them is like dealing with the anarco capitalist or the followers of mises institute
Totally agree. They are like all orthodox followers of an ideology – they believe it’s a science and therefore have all the arrogance and hubris that comes with that black and white perception of the world. They are, in short, little men and women who believe they are giants.
Nonetheless, it’s a useful paradigm to introduce capitalism on its own terms and show how it fails.
Fair enough but I am not sure that starting a conversation about Henry George would work today as a way of introducing socialist ideas to those only marginally interested in politics. At most it would be appropriate for discussing with Georgists. Most people today will have never heard of him.
In the last decades of the 19th century it was different. Georgism was a mass political movement. George himself got 30 percent of the votes when he stood for Mayor of New York in 1886. At that time it was useful to try to persuade his followers that his criticism of landlords also applied to capitalists. In fact this worked and many Georgists did become socialists.
Here is one of the debates that went on at the time:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/hyndman/1889/07/tax-debate.htm
We have also debated them ourselves more recently. But today’s Georgists are not half so radical as George himself or his followers of years ago. They are more concerned with the minutiae of reforming the tax system so that land values are taxed without alienating those who are freeholders or leaseholders of the land on which their house stands.
I had friends who were from the left and they took classes at the Henry George School of Social Sciences, and some right wingers, and social democrats also took classes at that institute, even more, two of them were teachers at the school, and both defended Henry George conceptions, therefore both tendencies were influenced by Henry George and as ALB has said at the beginning he had a large influence, and was more radical than his modern followers, and he had many followers, and some of them believed that Marx supported him. I wonder if Emiliano Zapatas was a follower of Henry George
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-George
https://www.hgsss.org. Henry George School of Social Sciences
I think in some part of his life Lyndon LaRouche supported some of his ideas, and he was a Trotskyist, and then he became an anti communists and a supporter of Donald Trump, and anti fascist, he had the same conception of Fascism as most member of the left and the Putinists, and he was against British imperialism
When were you there? Are from Mexico? Did you work for awhile in Alabama? Did we walk to Grand Central after class a few times? If so, we know each other!
These Georgists don’t understand that economics is a charade. It’s one giant hustle. They believe that their ideas are the equivalent of engineering. They forget that the support of the population is necessary in order to change laws. And the laws regarding land value and rent seeking are there to protect the ruling class. Changing those specific laws is a child’s fantasy, which is what the Georgists are at the end of the day. It’s one giant fantasy game like Dungeons and Dragons.
Meanwhile Imperialism/capitalism kills millions every year just from starvation alone. The Georgists don’t believe they should care about such thing’s because they are foreign affairs. It’s insane.
Yet I still think the idea of removing all rent seeking is a good starting point when beginning a conversation of economics.
I don’t understand what you mean when you say that Larouche had the same idea of fascism as most of the left do. Could you explain?
When did you debate the Georgists recently? I didn’t hear of that. The Georgists are afraid of socialists. They refuse to debate them, as far as I know. Are you in the U.K.? If so, that would make sense. The Americans are mostly smug and intolerant. A few are open minded, but they are in the minority.
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