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Henry George and Zionism Search JC Writing...

by Dusty Sklar
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The American social
Posted:
philosopher Henry George
October 26, 2014
published his second book, CONNECT WITH US
Comments: 6 Progress and Poverty, in 1879
and became one of the most celebrated figures in
the Western world. Not surprisingly, his ideas
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excited the early Zionists, who were just then
beginning to come together to search for solutions Email:
to the Jewish Question.

George set forth to answer a difficult riddle: why

extreme poverty should exist alongside immense
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wealth, despite social and technological progress.
His answer appealed to millions of people, including
the Zionists Emma Lazarus, Theodor Herzl, Louis
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Brandeis, Albert Einstein, and Franz Oppenheimer. It was an elegant answer, one that
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the Zionists took to heart when it was time to furnish their new home. Poverty, said
George, is rooted in a primary injustice, common to all nations: the “appropriation as DONATE
the property of some of that natural element on which and from which all must live.” He
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demonstrated, with eloquent prose, how material progress itself widens the gap
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between rich and poor. “Everything could go on as now,” he said, “and yet the common
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right to land be fully recognized by appropriating rent to the common benefit.” He
argued thus: history anti-Nazi resistance

anti-Semitism Black-
The tax upon land values is, therefore, the Jewish relations civil rights
most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only
upon those who receive from society a
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peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon
them in proportion to the benefit they
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receive. It is the taking by the community, for
the use of the community, of that value
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which is the creation of the community. It is Palestinian conflict Israeli-
the application of the common property to
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common uses. When all rent is taken by
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taxation for the needs of the community,
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then will the equality ordained by Nature be
attained. No citizen will have an advantage Jewish writers Judaism Labor
over any other citizen save as is given by his

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 over any other citizen save as is given by his
industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly earns. LGBTQ Living Traditions

Then, but not till then, will labor get its full reward, and capital its natural McCarthyism Music Nazism
return.
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Palestine poetry racism
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TWO YEARS AFTER the publication of Progress and Poverty, Zionism was spurred on Show Biz social
by the Russian pogroms of 1881. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by members of a
revolutionary group in which Jews played a minor role, and a wave of anti-Jewish justice Solidarity The Sixties
violence was set off. The American poet Emma Lazarus, author of “The New Colossus,” They Fought Back TV unions
which adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty, declared that the only way to assure the Women's rights WWII Yiddish
safety of European Jews was to found a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1883, fifteen Zionism
years before Theodor Herzl convened the first Zionist congress, she championed “Re-
Nationalization, Auto-Emancipation, Repatriation — call it by what name you will” —
founded the Society for the Colonization and Improvement for Eastern European Jews,
and began writing on “the Jewish problem” for major journals. Her friendship with Henry
George influenced her political economic thinking. Lazarus called Progress and Poverty
“not so much a book as an event. For once prove the undisputed truth of your idea, and
no person who prizes justice or common honesty can dine or sleep or read or work in
peace until the monstrous wrong in which we are all accomplices be done away with.
Herzl, unlike other influential Zionists, preferred Henry George’s remedy to that of the
socialists, as is evident in several of his diary entries:

June 12, 1895 – Work will be a joy…. In the construction industry (whether
for housing, railroads, highways, or the like) we will materially aid private
enterprise…. The Society will profit only through the increase of land values.
Construction is to be cheap, because building enhances the value of the
land.

June 13, 1895 – Our entire youth, all those between twenty and thirty years
of age, will veer away from inchoate socialistic leanings and turn to us.
They will go forth as preachers to their own families and among the
people — without my urging them. For the Land is to be theirs!

November 25, 1895 — A good idea of his is to levy a progressive tax on

land property. Henry George!

THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS of 1897 set up a Jewish National Fund for the
purpose of buying land in Palestine. The Fund actually came into existence in 1901 at
the Fifth Congress and was incorporated in England in 1907 as a limited liability
company with the authority to finance Jewish settlements of the land it bought. Its aim
was the national ownership of land, which did away with private ownership. Land
bought by the JNF couldn’t be resold or sublet, but was held in trusteeship and
belonged to the whole nation.

Yifat Holzman-Gazit writes in Land Expropriation in Israel: Law, Culture and Society
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007): The JNF “gained wide support” and was”favored as a
practical means by which to advance the objective of settling Palestine and achieving
Jewish sovereignty.

A central concern underlying the rejection of private property as a strategy

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 A central concern underlying the rejection of private property as a strategy
for nation-building was its connection to land speculation and the rise in
land prices. The economy of Palestine had two characteristics that favored
land speculation and the rise in land prices. It was a pre-industrial country
in which land could be purchased relatively cheaply and, given the increase
in immigration, resold at a profit…. Furthermore, public land ownership also
corresponded to the Zionist endeavor to promote social equality through
land reform. Central leaders within the Zionist movement echoed the social
justice ideology of the American land reformer Henry George…. already in
Altneuland Theodor Herzl cited Henry George’s land-poverty nexus….
George’s Progress and Poverty was translated into Hebrew… and was read
not only by the dominant socialist culture within the Zionist movement, but
also by middle-class Zionists.

In private correspondence with me, Professor Holzman-Gazit notes:

Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943), an economist, sociologist and Zionist,

suggested that in order to destroy the upper class monopoly of real estate,
a vast cooperative effort on the part of the lower classes was needed.
Following Henry George, Oppenheimer believed that agricultural producer
cooperatives could lead to the highest form of human association, namely
cooperative settlement (Franz Oppenheimer, Collective Ownership and
Private Ownership of Land, 1914.)

Holzman-Gazit continues:

Herzl. who was captivated by Oppenheimer’s concepts, invited him to

address the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903) on his ideas of cooperative
settlement as applied to the Zionist colonization in Palestine. This resulted
in the establishment of an experimental cooperative settlement in Merhavia
on JNF land in 1911. Though the experiment was not entirely successful,
the belief that land nationalization and inherited leases contribute to the
social equality of the future of the Jewish state remained valid. It also
suggested that in this way the increase in the value of the land due to
general development would not enrich the owner alone, but would add to
the wealth of the whole community.

LOUIS BRANDEIS HELD HENRY GEORGE IN HIGH REGARD. “I find it difficult to

disagree with the principles of Henry George,” he wrote. “I believe in the taxation of
land values only.”

Albert Einstein considered himself a Zionist, although he opposed the idea of a Jewish
state. In 1934, Einstein wrote two letters to George’s daughter, Anna George De Mille:

I have already read Henry George’s great book and really learned a great
deal from it…. Men like Henry George are rare unfortunately. One cannot
imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form
and fervent love of justice. Every line is written as if for our generation. The
spread of these works is a really deserving cause, for our generation
especially has many and important things to learn from Henry George. It
almost seems to me as if you had no conception to what high degree the
work of Henry George is appreciated by serious, thinking people.

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 In Altneuland, Theodor Herzl’s protagonists hoped that the new social system would be
applied everywhere, to cure the evil of capitalism without resorting to socialist
authoritarianism. Herzl’s dream was not fulfilled (he envisioned that there would be
public ownership of natural resources), and Henry George, despite having been widely
known, read, and discussed in the days of the early Zionists, is all but forgotten.

Dusty Sklar is the author of Gods and Beasts: The Nazis and the Occult, as well as
numerous stories and articles.

COMMENTS (6)

ruth lilian - Reply

October 26, 2014 at 8:25 pm
Grand a article. Informative, erudite, and the references were fascinating. I learned so much about
the history, the background and development of both Zionism and George. I especially liked the
tone of he article, written for the intelligent reader.

Mary Jo Nutt - Reply

October 27, 2014 at 9:52 am
Beautifully written–clear, smoothly flowing, elegant word choice. A topic new to me but well worth
exploring. Perhaps a sequel would be interesting to readers: how George’s ideas have been
implemented in the kibbutz movement (success, fidelity to his ideas) and in the country in
general. With land at such a premium–and such a source of conflict–what would George have
done?

Andy X - Reply
October 27, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Unfortunately, Israel is now privatizing land ownership. There are doing this under the pretext of
lowering housing costs. But as we know, housing costs will only go up.

Alanna Hartzok - Reply

October 27, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Yes, time to revive the teachings of Henry George. Also see Fred Foldvary’s article on Geo
Confederation as a way to solve Middle East conflicts via sharing the land rent, and his video
lecture here: http://www.earthrights.net

Barbara Wallk - Reply

October 27, 2014 at 8:38 pm
Excellent article. I would be interested in a follow-up: how George’s ideas were or were not
implemented when Israel became a state; what George would have had to say about creating a
state where Jews and Gentiles might live in peace; etc.

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 Nate Blair - Reply
October 28, 2014 at 4:29 pm
Make sure to read this article. It is pretty good. Some Georgists (Emma Lazarus and others I
believe) split from George and the georgist movement over disagreement about the merits of
Zionism. Read this article about Joseph Fels, by Israel Zangwill: “Two Josephs That Dreamed”

published in the ”Fortnightly Review”, June, 1920. http://books.google.com/books?

id=OhN0rC21oKIC&pg=PA337#v=onepage&q&f=false

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