Originally published on Henry George Foundation on June 19, 2026. Republished on Progress.org with permission.
Welcome to the Henry George Foundation Substack
The Henry George Foundation is an independent educational charity dedicated to promoting public engagement with the principles of economic freedom and justice that form the bedrock of modern, democratic societies. The Foundation supports work that addresses one of the most fundamental and seemingly intractable questions of the modern era: Why do grinding poverty and miserable destitution prevail in the midst of the extraordinary abundance and riches of advanced industrialised societies?
Why Henry George?
This question was addressed in a particularly striking and illuminating way by Henry George, an American journalist and self-taught economist who became one of the best-selling authors of the late 19th century. In Progress and Poverty, George stated coherently and explicitly a fundamental truth at which earlier thinkers (like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Sturat Mill) had only hinted:
Grinding poverty arises amid great plenty because the gains from material progress are captured by those who own the land.
Landowners reap the gains of social and technological progress because the rent they receive is not paid in return for a good or service, but for access to something which already exists. This means that those who benefit economically by charging rent for access to their land, or by lending money to people who want to buy land, do so at the expense of those who engage in the productive economic activity that creates wealth in the first place.
Why now?
As the twentieth century progressed, the economic importance of land seemed to decline as capitalist societies became fully industrialised and agriculture contributed less and less to economic output. The contributions made by Henry George and the classical economists that preceded him came to be seen by mainstream economists as hardly relevant to the social and economic context of the late twentieth century.
But more recently, the work of Thomas Piketty and other economists has revealed that land is every bit as important economically as it was 150 years ago. The evidence suggests that soaring inequality since the late 1970s is largely attributable to the rising value of land, as housing has been financialised and taxation shifted even further away from land and on to wages and consumption. Land rent now flows increasingly to banks, private equity funds, and shareholder dividends, disguised as mortgage interest and corporate profits. Land, as one prominent Georgist thinker and writer has recently put it, remains a very big deal.
George’s later work focused more broadly on the damaging effects of restricted competition and the dominance of monopolies of all kinds. The ever increasing ‘rentierisation’ of the economy, driven by (among other things) stronger intellectual property rights for large corporations, the privatisation of natural monopolies like public utilities, and the failure to ensure competition among digital platforms, is a phenomenon which would have been no surprise to George, and which he was already diagnosing in the late nineteenth century.
Social harms such as the lack of adequate and affordable housing, the rising cost of living, failing public services, and increasing economic inactivity are causing immense hardship and suffering for millions of people in modern Britain. These are symptoms of a deep structural imbalance, not isolated problems.
The Georgist tradition offers a coherent way to understand this imbalance and a practical framework for addressing it. This Substack is part of our effort to bring that framework into the mainstream of public debate.
What you can expect
Biweekly posts will explore the 21st century political and ethical implications of George’s work, analysing and commenting on the social and economic issues of our time through the lens of land, rent, and monopoly power.
We will publish:
Land, Monopolies, and UK Public Policy — commentary on current UK policy debates, fiscal reforms, and the political economy of land and monopolies
Empirical Insights — short, data‑driven pieces looking through the Georgist lens at a wide range of issues, from inequality, the rising cost of living, and the housing crisis to public finance, monetary policy, and the distribution of the tax burden
Georgist Perspectives — occasional essays offering broader reflections on the ethical foundations of the economy and society
From the Land & Liberty Archive — articles from back issues of HGF’s main publication (first published in 1894) giving previously published articles a wider exposure
Events & Announcements — updates on seminars, publications, and opportunities to engage
Ground Notes — a monthly digest of new research, articles, and ideas from across the field
Our aim is to make the Foundation’s work more accessible, more transparent, and more engaged with the wider public conversation.
Join us
Whether you are a researcher, policymaker, student, journalist, or simply someone trying to understand why the economy seems so dysfunctional, we hope you’ll find something here that informs, challenges, and inspires.
The Henry George Foundation is a UK-registered educational charity funded entirely by voluntary donations. If you’d like to contribute to or enquire about the work of the foundation, don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]
Thank you for reading, and welcome.
— The Henry George Foundation