Henry George the Prophet

Abstract

The Gilded Age saw the emergence of a number of figures who produced alternative theories to the dominant doctrine of laissez-faire. One such alternative theorist was Henry George (1839–97), a man of pronounced individualist proclivities who invoked the Jeffersonian tradition of sturdy agrarian independence as a corrective to an unbalanced economy which, he believed, was driving a destructive wedge between rich and poor. Today, George is regarded primarily as an economic reformer and his best-selling book with its jingling title, Progress and Poverty (1879), is read for its analysis of post-bellum America and for the panacea that it propounds: a levy on the value of land which, because it was designed to replace all other taxes, came to be called the Single Tax. In contrast, George's religious beliefs have received scant attention from his biographers and historians of the period, who have done little more than note that he was a devout Christian. This oversight has been rectified in a recent article by Fred Nicklason, ‘ Henry George: Social Gospeller ’, which draws attention to the religious orientation of George's writings and discusses his relations with churchmen. Yet although Nicklason stresses the importance of George's religious activity, he asserts that ‘ George himself moved from an initial concern for the single tax as a social reform to a deep-seated regard for its divine sanction ’. I believe that this is a misconception of George, and I shall try to show that his visionary experience led him to regard himself as a religious leader and prompted him to formulate his social theory. I also hope to demonstrate that his messianic pretensions grew with his following and that it was his religious role, rather than the Single Tax, which during his lifetime not only made disciples but also influenced theorists who were otherwise unsympathetic to his economic bolus.