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viii
FOREWORD

the human family everywhere, and that recur, with unfailing regularity, in cycles that seem unexplainable except to the followers of Henry George. And, at a time when world opinion is demanding that statesmanship shall outlaw war, it is important to recall that the World Economic Conference, held at Geneva in 1927 at the call of the League of Nations, found a definite interdependence of the economic causes of war and industrial depression. It seems like a vindication of the philosophy of Henry George to find that this Conference, to which the representatives of fifty nations were called, unanimously arrived at the conclusion that:

“The main trouble now is neither any material shortage of the resources of nature nor any inadequacy in man’s power to exploit them. It 1s all, in one form or another, a maladjustment; not an insufficient productive capacity, but a series of impediments to the full utilization of that capacity. The main obstacles to economic revival have been the hindrances opposed to the free flow of labor, capital, and goods”

This, in effect, is what Henry George maintained fifty years ago, contrary to the teachings of the accepted political economy.

Greater need than ever exists for a re-examination by mankind of the remedy for the world’s social and economic ills that is involved in the fundamental proposals of Henry George—proposals which Tolstoy declared must ultimately be accepted by the world because they are so logical and so unanswerable.

Therefore, the trustees of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, of New York, which was formed to bring about a wider acquaintance with the social and economic philosophy of Henry George, have considered this an appropriate time to produce from new plates this Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of “Progress and Poverty.”