Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2099

Penciled page inserted at page 182 in Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 52nd Anniversary Edition, London, The Henry George Foundation of Great Britain, 1931

Note* Progress & Poverty p 254 (or 182)

In a highly organized community of closely knitted membership the phenomena of scattered settlement and use of land remote from towns does not exist. But in regions newly settled and being settled, neither does there exist that complexity of organization that simplifies the functioning of the individual members. Specialization and division of labor has not developed far enough to integrate all types of individuals effectively and thus lessen the normal tendencies of those who are least adapted to the more complex cooperative relationships. Such per­sons, not well qualified for special employment or well adapted to become the employers of others can no more afford to pay rent for large quantities of public services than they can afford to pay wages for large quantities of private services. Accordingly, such persons go farther out and occupy the land that affords them only such public services that they can afford to use and pay for — and this in its due proportion to the amount of private services that they can afford to employ. The remote “margins” are occupied by per­sons who have little capacity or disposition to employ others or to be employed by others. Their situation and condition is but one remove from the nomadic. They are the “marginal men.”

In a new or young society the gradation of men as to property and social responsibility tends first to be lateral and horizontal and then later to become and to remain vertical.