“Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” – Karl Marx, Capital Volume One; Chapter 10

“The association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times . . . So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes . . . progress is not real and cannot be permanent.” – Henry George, Progress and Poverty; Book 1, Chapter 1

As I recently completed Henry George’s Progress and Poverty and read Karl Marx’s Capital Volume One last year, I found myself reflecting on the striking differences and possible harmonies between these two seminal works in political economy. While Marx and George were known rivals with distinct conclusions, their ideas are not necessarily incompatible, and their analyses offer unique perspectives on capitalism and land ownership that deserve closer examination. Each provides a unique perspective, and a comparative analysis reveals intriguing differences and potential complementarities. Before we get into the complexities of analyzing the two works comparatively, it will be more illuminating to start by examining them individually to understand where each thinker is coming from fully.

The biggest points that Karl Marx raises in his text, fully titled Capital Volume One: Critique of Political Economy, are the obvious ones that an educated reader likely already knows, namely: historical materialism, the exploitation of labor, and commodity fetishism. The historical materialist aspect is easily the most recognizable, as its appearance within Marx’s discourse predates Capital (the concept appears in The Communist Manifesto, published almost twenty years prior – “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”); this forms the basis of Marxist thought, that societal change is the result of the inherent conflict between the haves and the have-nots. It should be noted that Marx himself considered capitalism to be the most progressive force in human history up to the point of his life, despite its violent origins and nature (“Capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” Chapter 26), extending life expectancy among the poorer populations while leading to innovations never before seen and opening the doors to many possible futures, but being the social critic he was, he couldn’t help but see the contradictions within the system, and it was this analysis that led to his developing of his in-depth theory. At the end of the day, he saw these contradictions as, ultimately, self-destructive (“Accumulation of wealth at one pole . . . at the same time accumulation of misery, the agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.” Chapter 25).

 Moving on to our next subject, Henry George focuses on an area often overlooked even by today’s economists. The common message we hear from mainstream talking heads on our TVs regarding where value comes from is usually broken down to “capital plus labor equals value”, whereas George invokes the importance of land into this equation. George, like many other classical liberal economists before him, argues for a labor theory of value (a largely ignored theory today, especially among liberals), stating that it is labor that precedes capital and, also, that labor by itself can still create value whereas capital can’t even exist without labor . But then from where does labor come from? If labor is the physical or mental exertion of an individual or collective that adds to society or leads to the creation of something that can be traded in a mutual exchange, where is it that the laborer works, from where does he take the tools he needs? George argues that all is provided to the laborer(s) by the land they toil on; the earth’s land was here before our common ancestor crawled out of the primordial soup, it is here, on the land, where we learned to evolve, share, build, plant, develop, to do, literally, everything we know and enjoy. George argues that while labor precedes capital, land, in turn, precedes labor (“Labor is the active and initial force in production . . . Land is the passive factor. Without land, labor could not act; but without labor, land would be useless.” Book 3, Chapter 3). Due to the permanence of land, George argues that its shared nature makes private landownership unethical, commodifying something that should be universal and creating an environment of artificial scarcity (“The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air – it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence.” Book 7, Chapter 1). He sees land monopoly as the fundamental issue causing poverty despite economic growth.

Now that we have taken some time to briefly cover the basics of what these two men argued, it’s time to begin comparing and contrasting their writings, finding nuances that can be ignored when we shut out listening to one or the other for the sake of remaining in one’s ideological camp.

Divergent Writing Styles Reflect Different Approaches

One of the most notable distinctions between Marx and George is their writing styles. George writes with the flair of an artist, using vivid and engaging prose that could easily belong in a work of fiction had his imagination been more devoted to fantasy rather than the social sciences. In contrast, Marx’s Capital reads like a dense academic treatise, more akin to an 800-page scientific paper despite some humorous naming tropes. This difference in style is not just superficial; it reflects their distinct approaches to their subject matter. George’s artistic flair aligns with his focus on ethics, eloquently justifying his views on poverty and land ownership through moral reasoning, going beyond scientific understanding and making it a statement on what’s right and wrong (“Private property in land is a bold, bare, enormous wrong, like that of chattel slavery.” Book 7, Chapter 1). Marx’s style is more methodical and underscores his deep dive into economic theory, focusing more on the efficiencies and failures within the capitalist system, as well as the inherent contradictions he perceives within it.

Contrasting Focuses on Capital and Land

As stated in the introduction, Marx zeroes in on the contradictions within the capitalist system, analyzing how these inherent flaws lead to exploitation and systemic crises. While he critiques capitalism extensively in Capital, he refrains from offering solutions within this work (those were written years prior in his more succinct Communist Manifesto, co-authored with Friedrich Engels). In George’s research, he concludes that growing poverty is due to landowners accruing unearned wealth from land ownership and that the solution is to abolish private ownership of land by making it common property, and, in keeping true to his libertarian attitude of opposition to government force (“We must make land common property . . . not by confiscating land, but by taking the rent of it in taxation and abolishing all taxes on the products of labor.” Book 8, Chapter 2). He proposes that the best method of achieving this solution is through a single tax on unimproved land, widely known as the land value tax; according to his arguments, this would both encourage efficient land use and reduce speculative holding. While their focuses differ, both identify critical issues within the economic structures of their time, and Marx’s analysis of labor exploitation can be paired with George’s view on unearned income from land.

Synthesizing Their Insights for a Broader Perspective

Despite their differences, Marx’s and George’s ideas can, as pointed out previously, be synthesized into a more comprehensive critique of capitalism. Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s self-destructive tendencies complements George’s argument for land as common property. In fact, doesn’t it make sense to conclude that monopoly itself is bad and that it doesn’t matter whether this monopoly is held over either capital or land? When any resource becomes too entrenched in the hands of a few at the expense of the many, this inevitably opens the door to exploitation and poverty, which both men would argue is a preventable tragedy only made possible by bureaucracy (“There is in nature no reason for poverty. The fault lies within human institutions, which take for some what in reality belongs to all.” Progress and Poverty; Book 4, Chapter 3). One could argue, as Marx did, that while capitalism initially served as a progressive force against feudalism, it now shows signs of systemic failure. George’s land value tax (LVT) could address economic disparity, as its implementation would (ideally) abolish rent, with any surplus distributed as a basic income, while Marx’s critique of capital’s contradictions and revolutionary proposal to abolish private property in the means of production highlights the need for broader systemic change. This dialectical approach integrates both thinkers’ insights, offering a richer understanding of political economy.

Conclusion

On a personal note, my leanings are both Marxian and Georgist. I align with Marx’s analysis of capitalism, and a lot of what he has written has remained applicable even today, but I do not subscribe to the quasi-religious philosophy and monocausal view of history often associated with Marxism. George’s critique of land ownership is compelling, but he fails to see that his criticisms of landownership can also apply to private ownership of capital. Interestingly, despite being an anarchist and socialist, I find myself appreciating George a bit more, as his writing exudes hope and a genuine love for humanity, whereas Marx often comes across as bitter and resentful of the ruling elite (though not unjustifiably so). Ever since finishing Progress and Poverty, I’ve become more aware of seeing “For Rent” signs while driving around my city, usually displayed with the name of the real estate company that owns the property; I also experience the unjust power of landownership within my own workplace, as the company I work for would love to recycle but the owner of the property which the business sits on doesn’t allow it.

But returning to the subject at hand, George’s influence extends across the political spectrum, from right-libertarian economist Milton Friedman to 19th century author and anarchist Leo Tolstoy, highlighting the universal appeal of his ideas. Moreover, the application of Marxism by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao in the 20th century underscores a critical point: while Marx accurately identified the problems within capitalism, his followers often derived monstrous solutions. Noam Chomsky went so far as to claim that fellow anarchist Mikhail Bakunin’s prediction that Marxist states would devolve into state-capitalist dictatorships is “one of the few predictions in the social sciences that actually came true.” In conclusion: for anyone interested in political economy, reading both Capital and Progress and Poverty provides valuable insights that remain relevant to contemporary debates.