Michael Kinsley on "Progress & Poverty"

This isn't the first time Michael Kinsley has shared his appreciation of Henry George and his landmark book, Progress & Poverty, but I thought it worth sharing nonetheless.  In the newest issue of The Week, Kinsley shares 7 favorite books.  The rest are novels, and here is what he has to say about P&P:

Progress and Poverty by Henry George (Cosimo, $15). Once a famous book by a famous author, now almost forgotten. George was a self-trained economist of the late 19th century. In Progress and Poverty, he explains to his own satisfaction — and pretty much to mine — how all the world’s evils are attributable to real estate. He overstates his case, but he does so with wit and excess that make the book fun to read. And it leaves you thinking …

Well, it isn't quite accurate to say "attributable to real estate."  I'd rephrase that to say something like "attributable to our failure to treat part of real estate -- the economic value of the land part -- as our common treasure."

I'm glad Kinsley sees Henry George's wit and vision.  I can't say I found P&P fun on the first reading -- I struggled through it the first time, though I now read it for pleasure.  May I offer you a number of options for dipping a toe into the water?

1. The first is the shortest version.  It comes from J. W. Bengough, a Canadian journalist, cartoonist and commentator.

All Boasted Charitable Doles Ever Futile.
God Hates Injustice.
Justice Knows Land May Not be Owned.
Poverty Quickly Remedied by Single Tax Upon Value, Work-value Excepted.
Yours Zealously, The Author)

(a little short for my tastes, but admirable nonetheless.)

2. A synopsis by Al Katzenberger
3. A 1928 abridgment by Harry Gunnison Brown, of the University of Missouri, Columbia ... including John Dewey's appreciation of Henry George.  Yes -- that John Dewey.  The book runs about 75 pages.
4. A. W. Madsen's abridgment (240 pages)
5. Bob Drake's 2006 thought-by-thought updating of P&P.  Bob first updated P&P into contemporary language -- roughly the language of Time or Newsweek -- and then abridged it, shortening some of HG's awesomely long and poetic sentences ... some of the excess to which Kinsley refers ... and providing a very readable version.  Those who know the original will find it ringing in their ears.   Those who do not will find a very readable book on the cause of some of our most serious -- and otherwise intractable -- problems, and the remedy we need if we are ever to solve them.   You can read it online here (with a course!) and here, listen to it as MP3s here, and buy it from Amazon or Schalkenbach.

6 The unabridged, available online and in hardcopy (look also at Amazon and, often, on ebay. (It was, after all, the #2 bestseller of the 1880s, and within 20 or so years, 6 million copies had been sold, so it is not surprising to find many of those copies still available.  6 million would be a blockbuster today.  Think of it over 100 years ago!  According to Wikipedia, The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957, has sold 10 million copies.)

(I've left out some others; e.g., there was an abridgment called More Progress, Less Poverty.)