A Perplexed Philosopher: An Examination of Herbert Spencer's Utterances on the Land Question

by Henry George

Book by Henry George

276 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land. He inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism, whose main tenet is that people should own what they create, but that everything found in nature, most importantly the value of land, belongs equally to all humanity. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of the land value tax as a remedy.

Reviews

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henry George and Herbert Spencer are among my favourite 19th century thinkers in political economy. Their views converged in the early parts of their careers but violently diverged towards the end of them. The source of their consonance and ultimate dissonance were their views on the land question: is private property in land and natural resources justified without due compensation to those who are excluded from it? Henry George always said that it wasn't; Herbert Spencer originally took the Georgist position (before George himself) but later partially recanted. Given the uneasy and tumultuous relationship between them (if that is what you can call a one-sided love affair turned into a hate affair), and recognizing the unique brilliance of their minds, upon learning of the existence of a book like "Perplexed Philosopher", I knew I had to read it. As someone who is heavily invested in intellectual history in general and the land question in particular, I was not disappointed. But for a reader who is less invested in this material, it is all a bit... much.

I use the phrase "a bit much" very deliberately. It applies here in several ways. To start with, for Henry George to spend nearly 300 pages combing through the utterances of Herbert Spencer on the land question is a bit much. Secondly, to explain (if not excuse) the excessive length, the structure of the book is a bit much: it consists of quoting Spencer's voluminous letters and chapters verbatim and often for several pages at a time. Thirdly, the rhetoric he uses throughout the book is definitely a bit much, too. Let me give you a representative sample of his vitriol: "[Herbert Spencer] proves himself alike a traitor to all that he once held and to all that he now holds - a conscious and deliberate traitor, who assumes the place of the philosopher, the office of the judge, only to darken truth and to deny justice; to sell out the right of the wronged and to prostitute his powers in the defence of the wronger." This is not a criticism of George; this is an excommunication.

George is a powerful rhetorician. When the book is witty, it is very witty. One of my favourite sections, called Principal Brown, mocks (mercilessly and a bit unfairly) Spencer's apology for private landownership by equating with an antebellum apology to slavery. Spencer argued that although the community maintained the rightful claim to the naked land value, existing landowners would have to be compensated in case the community decided to reclaim its ownership over the land. George would have none of this. In his response, George makes the slick tongued teacher of Moral Philosophy say: "Perhaps there may be reason to suspect that at some future time the slaves may be liberated, after paying their owners more than they are worth; but I have no positive opinion as to what may hereafter take place", and that "each living negro owes to his owner, as the cost of keeping him, $267 a year for one hundred and fifty years." He is thus equating the old Spencer's position on the land question with the antebellum anti-abolitionist position. This argument is witty, to the point, and funny. And it crucially takes advantage of an analogy that Spencer himself had once approvingly used - slavery - to argue for the injustice of landlordism, thus showing the seeming hypocrisy in Spencer's wavering and nuanced position.

There are plenty of brilliant sections in the book. The line by line dissection of Spencer's views reveals several inconsistencies and weaknesses of argument in the original texts. Some of George's arguments and analogies are brilliant, like the aforementioned parable of slavery. The writing style, while vindictive and petty, is consistently clear and powerful, and occasionally masterful. George spends much time mocking Spencer, not only in relation to his vacillating views on the land question, but also in relation to his atheistic views, grand philosophical ambitions, and "wooden" writing style. Some of this criticism is justified, but a lot of is petty. The book is vindictive and personal in a way that must stem from a sense of personal betrayal. Old and embittered, George writes like someone revenging on their ex-lover with a public humiliation. Whatever the reason, the resulting treatise is half masterful and half embarrassing - a strange beast indeed. But to what effect? Perhaps he he intimated (correctly) that Spencer would never stoop to reply.

Although the book's topic might feel outdated, since it reads like a marginal intellectual turf war in an obscure corner of 19th century philosophy, this would be a great misunderstanding. The topic of the "land question" raises central issues regarding freedom, equality, and justice. I often wonder how history might have been different, and arguable better, if the Left followed Henry George's path in advocating individual freedom and equal rights in land supported by a land tax, as opposed to collectivism and redistribution supported by the taxation of income. Likewise, history would have been very different if the Right had followed the young Spencer's views in embracing the equal right to natural resources as a foundational tenet of libertarian justice. Spencer's capitulation on this point might have indicated the downfall of a precious historical moment. It also signaled the beginning of a new century whose ideological trends would have been abhorrent to both George and Spencer. Whether the 21st century has the courage to rediscover Georgism is a pivotal question.