Both George and
Bellamy were writers, Bellamy as a newspaper reporter although his influence came mostly through
his novels. Looking Backward, published in 1888 and set in Boston, sold
over a million copies, and concerned a man who somehow fell asleep and awakes in the year 200,
in a socialist utopia. This society, in contrast to the contemporaneous one, had nationalised
industry, equal distribution of wealth and no classes. Bellamy also founded the Nationalist
Clubs, and was editor of the Nationalist (beginning 1889) and the
New Nation (1891-1894).
Henry George was self taught in economic
theories through his reading. While working as a journeyman printer in San Fransisco he
witnessed the town's rise from a rough camp-town to a city with fine buildings, tramways and
buses. He did notice, however, that the more progress the city made and the richer some of the
people became, the more poverty there was, that the advent of actual poverty and degradation in
the city came only when affluence and liesure became common among an "upper" class.
This led him to his studies, and the 1879 publication of Progress and
Poverty. His ideas included the concept that one who works should have access to
that which he makes or builds, what the community makes belongs to the community for use by the
community, and ownership of the world belongs to all. These ideas became much of the basis of
the Progressive Movement, a decentralized movement believing that economic elites and the rich
always have more influence than the poor, the average taxpayers and citizens and that this
inequity should be redressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment