Primary Source Documents

Henry George on the Nature of Property

Henry George, a self-taught social philosopher and one of the most original economists of the late nineteenth century, settled in California in 1868. Seeing rampant speculation in land and want amid plenty, George described America as "the House of Have and the House of Want." He believed wealth was created by applying labor to land.

What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man justly to say of a thing, "It is mine?" From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? Is it not, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions? Is it not this individual right, which springs from and is testified to by the natural facts of individual organization --the fact that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain and are related to a particular stomach; the fact that each man is a definite, coherent, independent whole-- which alone justifies individual ownership? As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him.

If production give to the producer the right to exclusive possession and enjoyment, there can rightfully be no exclusive possession and enjoyment of anything not the production of labor, and the recognition of private property in land is a wrong.

1		How does Henry George define the nature of property? What attitudes and assumptions underlay his definition?
2		What are the "natural facts of individual organization," and how are they related to the ownership of property?
3		Why does George conclude that "the recognition of private property in land is wrong?" How does such a conclusion vary from more conventional beliefs about ownership and property?