Henry George

Henry George, was an American author, economist, and politician, who wrote an economic treatise entitled "Progress and poverty" in 1879, that offered the only alternative economic model, to the current model in which you are dependent, a slave, to a monopolist of Land and/or Natural Resources to obtain your employment, and thereby satisfy your survival needs for water, food, clothing, shelter, fuel and medicine.

The reason you haven't heard of him, is that his model favours the economic liberation of the entire population from the financial control of the Plutocrats and ruling elite, as I will attempt to summarise below.

History of the current economic model
Without access to Land and natural resources, you would not be able to survive on this planet for very long.

There was a time when no one owned land. We were all hunter-gatherers who moved around on land, and lived off the animals we could kill.

Then thugs (kings) with armies came and stole the land and natural resources from under us, and killed or enslaved the population.

Since slaves are not terribly productive because they have no incentive to be, and have to be micro-managed to extract work, those kings came up with a new idea where they deluded us into thinking we were "free" and rented the land to us, for a portion of our labour (produce or money).

Then they taxed us another portion of our labour (produce or money) to build infrastructure, which they said we needed, but it was in fact so the king could take the produce he received as tax, and transport it to markets for his own enrichment.

Then the king put up toll gates, and taxed us more labour (money), this time because he said we were damaging "his infrastructure".

Then the king sold us goods in the market, and taxed us for purchasing the
product.

Finally, kings taxed us to continually subsidize infrastructure projects that had no direct benefit for ourselves, but that added value to to the kings land.

And when we finally had no labour (money) left, the king loaned us money in exchange for paying it back with interest, with labour we would only be able to exercise at a future date, or with our children's labour, or our grand-children's labour, etc.

Shift from Aristocracy to Plutocracy
Since fiat money and fiat currency were invented (last 400-years) the ownership has shifted slightly from a traditional "king and aristocracy" to include some new monied players, so we call them collectively, Plutocracy now.

Land leases (rental) evolved into land purchase, which is the same thing, but with no expiry date on the term of the lease. "Owners of land" are still tenants with limited land usage rights who continue to pay ongoing property taxes.

If you don't own sufficient land to ensure your independent survival, then under the current system you are at best a slave who exchanges your labour for money, or you are unemployed when no land/resource owner gives you a place to labour (work), or when you become homeless, you are an alien who is trespassing on land owned by someone else.

The Henry George Model
The Georgist model of LVT (Land Value Tax), is an economic mechanism, to give everyone a theoretical equal economic share of access to land, while continuing to allow only the most productive business people to access land, and use it for it's most productive use, in a modern complex world economy.

It's a truly free market system in which every citizens basic survival needs are taken care of from birth to death, but not through taxes on others people labour, profits, or innovations.

If you don't work you won't get wealthy but, if you do want to work, you are not dependent on someone else for your employment. It's your choice to work for them, or work for yourself, or not work at all, and it puts the negotiating power for your remuneration back in your hands.

It also takes away unnecessary legislation to police employers, and they can hire and fire to obtain only the most productive workers.

Because land must be productive, people who currently monopolise it for the sake of simply creating a false shortage, are forced to either use it, or loose it back to the system, so others can create employment.

For new start-up companies, the barriers to entry are lowered. Because land is rented rather than bought, so all capital can be directed into the project itself rather than into purchasing artificially expensive land.

The value of capital investments in infrastructure add to the asset value of the land, but since everyone has an equal economic share in land, your land rental (tax) works for you directly. Currently, your taxes pass from your pocket into that of the land monopolist where the investment is made. 

For hard working productive people, you don't have to support the lazy or feel guilty about their lack of economic wealth, because only they stop themselves from working.

Most importantly, you own a share in your country, so for the first time you are genuinely a citizen with equal economic rights, and not an alien on someone else's land looking for employment from "the landlord".

Further Sources of information
You can read more on the life of Henry George on Wikipedia, Henry George

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