Henry George was an American political economist and journalist. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), sold millions of copies worldwide, probably more than any other American book before that time.

The book is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust.

I want to stress that this was one of the most important books ever written. Only the Bible sold more copies than George!

I want to share my favorite parts. See if you notice how similar the problems of past are to the problems to today.

Introductory – The Problem

At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that labor-saving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would…