Henry George was a political philosopher who had published his first book, Progress and Poverty, in 1879, to enormous commercial success. During the 1890s, its sales exceeded all other books except the Bible, and it had an enormous influence on Progressives—a great many of whom credited an encounter with George’s ideas with reorienting their lives toward social and political reform. He argued vehemently for mechanisms to control the astronomical wealth of monopolistic businesses, and their influence on destructive boom-bust cycles in the economy.
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