Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1171

Notes for a letter to Georgists, marked “DRAFT – Not used”

 

 

Dear Sir:

Some of the New York friends of Henry George’s Social Philosophy of Freedom have suggested that you might be interested in some further application of his general principles, and in making explicit at the growing edge of his philosophy that which was necessarily implied, but not fully explicated by him.

I have particular reference to his insistence upon the exclusion of political authority from the direct collection of rent (pp. 404), and to his proposed elaboration of the exchange principle as “another law or condition of nature related to man” for which he made provision at the end of Chapter 11, Book 3, Sc. Pol. Ecn., but did not live to carry out.

The enclosed monograph, “Private Property in Land Explained,” is an attempt of the present writer to explain this institution as a provision of nature for the carrying out of this exchange principle between men in their community relationships, as they do in all their private relationships that serve and succeed.

If you believe with me that social freedom depends upon the liberty of men to engage with each other in mutual services upon the principle of exchange, you will appreciate my desire to understand social institutions in the light of this principle.

Please accept this as my cordial invitation to visit me in New York and discuss these matters at or near the time of the coming Henry George Congress. I suggest Sunday afternoon, September 3rd, at 3 P.M., as a convenient time. However, I will be generally available, especially before 10 A.M., at my New York address, Kings Crown Hotel, 420 West 116th Street (University 4-2700).

 

I look forward with pleasure to a further acquaintance with you.

Very truly yours,