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https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty

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[This is the third of many finalists in the book review contest. It\\u2019s not by me - it\\u2019s by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I\\u2019ll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you\\u2019ve read all of them, I\\u2019ll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. - SA]

In 1879, a man asked "How come all this new economic development and industrialized technology hasn\'t eliminated poverty and oppression?" That man was Henry George, his answer came in the form of a book called\\xa0Progress & Poverty,\\xa0and this is a review of that book.

Henry George is variously known for leading an early movement that popularized Universal Basic Income, sporting a fancy beard while shouting "The Rent Is Too Damn High!" and\\xa0inspiring a popular board game\\xa0that was shamelessly ripped off and repackaged as\\xa0Monopoly.

But he didn\'t just write a book. He also\\xa0ran for Mayor of New York city in 1886, beating out some rando Republican named "Theodore Roosevelt," but ultimately losing to the favored candidate of Tammany Hall, who saw George\'s radical economic ideas as a threat to their well-oiled political machine (Andrew Yang take note). He ran again in 1897 but died just 4 days before the election, prompting a national outpouring of mourning. According to Ralph Gabriel\'s\\xa0Course of American Democratic Thought,\\xa0in New York alone\\xa0200,000\\xa0people came to see his body lying in repose, half of which had to be turned away. For context, that one crowd was roughly the size of\\xa01% of the entire population of New York at the time.

I\'m writing this book review for three reasons:

• George\'s arguments about land, labor, and capital present a fresh alternative to conventional ideas about "Capitalism" and "Socialism" (and whatever we mean by those on any given day)

• The book has timeless advice for navigating modern crises such as ever-rising rents, homelessness, and the\\xa0NIMBY\\xa0vs.\\xa0YIMBY\\xa0wars.

• This is a golden opportunity to shamelessly over-use the catchy phrase "By George!"