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“An investigation of the nature and basis of property shows that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable difference between property in things which are the product of labor and property in land; that the one has a natural basis and sanction while the other has none, and that the recognition of exclusive property in land is necessarily a denial of the right of property in the products of labor.

Further investigation shows that private property in land always has, and always must, as development proceeds, lead to the enslavement of the laboring class; thus land-owners can make no just claim to compensation if society choose to resume its right; that so far from private property in land being in accordance with the natural perceptions of men, the very reverse is true, and that in the United States we are already beginning to feel the effects of having admitted this erroneous and destructive principle.”

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Henry George, Preface to the Fourth Edition of Progress and Poverty, November 1880

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