There are only three ways by which any individual can get wealth — by work, by gift or by theft. And, clearly, the reason why the workers get so little is that the beggars and thieves get so much.
Henry GeorgeAt the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that laborsaving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past... From Progress and Poverty, To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state and would strive for its attainment.
Henry GeorgeWhat has destroyed every previous civilization has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power.
Henry GeorgeLaissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to the realization of the noble dreams of socialism.
Henry GeorgeAs it becomes more and more difficult to get land, so will the virtual enslavement of the laboring-classe s go on. As the value of land rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will be demanded for the use of land, until finally nothing is left to laborers but the wages of slavery -- a bare living.
Henry George