Henry George

Born in Philadelphia in 1839, he left school young, worked at sea, and eventually settled in California, where newspaper work helped shape his voice and his politics. Writing as a journalist and public thinker, he drew on everyday urban life—especially the contrast between great wealth and deep poverty—to ask why economic progress so often failed to improve life for everyone.

He is best known for Progress and Poverty (1879), the book that made him internationally famous. In it, he argued that while people should keep what they produce, the unearned value of land should be taxed for public benefit, an idea later known as the “single tax.” Clear, combative, and aimed at ordinary readers as much as specialists, his work influenced reformers well beyond economics.

He also became a public figure in politics, including a high-profile run for mayor of New York City. Although he died in 1897, his arguments about land, inequality, taxation, and the social effects of growth have continued to spark debate ever since.