Texts

Thomas Paine's 1797 pamphlet arguing that land monopoly is the root of poverty, and proposing a national fund — funded by a ground-rent on landowners — to pay every citizen a capital grant at age 21 and an annual pension from age 50.

Henry George's 1891 open letter to Pope Leo XIII, written in response to Rerum Novarum. George argues that Catholic social teaching's condemnation of socialism is correct, but that its defence of landed property confuses God-made land with man-made capital — and that the land question is the true ke

Henry George's 1885 lecture arguing that poverty is not a natural condition but a crime perpetrated by laws that allow private monopoly of the gifts of nature — above all, land — and showing how a single tax on land values would abolish it.

David Lloyd George's 1909 budget speech introducing the People's Budget, which included a land value duty, an undeveloped land duty, and an increment value duty — the most serious legislative attempt to tax land values in British history.