Fun Random Henry George Quotes
Henry George has some spicy words on a number of different groups in his The Condition of Labour.
On the Socialists:
its advocates generally teach the preposterous and degrading doctrine... childishly blaming the stone for hitting it, it wastes strength in striving for remedies that when not worse are futile... While its methods, the organization of men into industrial armies, the direction and control of all production and exchange by governmental or semi-governmental bureaus, would, if carried to full expression, mean Egyptian despotism.
On protectionists:
They promote perjury, fraud and corruption. And they would, were the theory carried to its logical conclusion, destroy civilization and reduce mankind to savagery
On Trade Unions:
its methods are like those of an army, which even in a righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to abuse, while its weapon, the strike, is destructive in its nature, both to combatants and non-combatants, being a form of passive war. To apply the principle of trades-unions to all industry, as some dream of doing, would be to enthral men in a caste system.
And most devastatingly and cutting of all, on the anarchists:
The philosophical anarchists of whom I speak are few in number, and of little practical importance.
Here's a fun quote from Social Problems:
As we see in the history of social development, commerce has been and is the great civilizer and educator. The seemingly infinite diversities in the capacity of different parts of the earth's surface lead to that exchange of productions which is the most powerful agent in preventing isolation, in breaking down prejudice, in increasing knowledge and widening thought. These diversities of nature, which seemingly increase with our knowledge of nature's powers, like the diversities in the aptitudes of individuals and communities, which similarly increase with social development, call forth powers and give rise to pleasures which could never arise had man been placed, like an ox, in a boundless field of clover. The 'international law of God " which we fight with our tariffs, β so short-sighted are the selfish prejudices of men βis the law which stimulates mental and moral progress; the law to which civilization is due.
Also really liked this one:
We are in constant fear that other nations may do for us some of the work we might do for ourselves, and, to prevent them, guard ourselves with a tariff. We laud as public benefactors those who, as we say, "furnish employment. " We are constantly talking as though this "furnishing of employment," this "giving of work " were the greatest boon that could be conferred upon society. To listen to much that is talked and much that is written, one would think that the cause of poverty is that there is not work enough for so many people, and that if the Creator had made the rock harder, the soil less fertile, iron as scarce as gold, and gold as diamonds ; or if ships would sink and cities burn down oftener, there would be less poverty, because there would be more work to do.
One that is a bit funnier, George coming out batting for child labour lol:
How little better than idle is it for us to prohibit infant labour in factories when the scale of wages is so low that it will not enable fathers to support their families without the earnings of their little children!