Grow Your Support

Early in the American republic, Thomas Paine urged that everything “beyond what a man’s own hands produce” was a gift that came to him simply by living in society, and, hence, “he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.” Another American reformer, Henry George, challenged what he called “the unearned increment” that is created when population growth and other societal factors increase land values.”