"The wages problem resolves itself into a very simple question, viz.: Which is the better for a community — to have 10,000,000 men earning $2.50 a day, with hours that enable them to read and rest and pass a fair proportion of their time with their families, and at the same time have no millionaires, or to have those 10,000,000 men working fifteen hours a day at $1.50, and have a few score millionaires?"
This was a bit of end-of-column filler from the January 29, 1887, issue of Henry George's weekly newspaper, The Standard, and is attributed to The San Francisco Reporter.
The Standard was devoted to issues like this, and makes excellent reading in this decade and century.
It might be worth noting that in those days when one spoke of a millionaire, the reference was to someone whose assets totalled over $1 million. Today, it is commonly used to refer to someone whose annual income is over $1 million. But you'll notice what workmen's wages were in 1887 -- $1.50 a day is $468 per year*, and likely didn't leave much, if anything, for savings. [6 days a week.]
So which IS better for the community? The families making $1.50 or $2.50 a day are spending nearly every penny of that, just in order to get by. The millionaires can only spend so much on the necessities of daily life, plus some generous amount on luxuries. The rest they will invest, one way or another, and the wise ones, in our current structure, will "invest" in land -- particularly choice urban sites -- and natural resources, since we as a society are so generous about letting the owners of these assets keep most of what those assets earn, despite them having nothing to do with having created those assets, and being in no position to create more in response to demand, which will naturally increase with population!!
THAT is the problem with our current "generosity."
The spending of the 10 million on the necessities of daily life creates jobs for a lot of other people. (The portion that goes to their landlords in payment for the right to occupy bits of urban -- or other -- land, DOESN'T create any jobs; it simply enriches the landlord. I don't begrudge the landlord the portion that relates to the building, or to services he provides, such as, say, a doorman in the city.)
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