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• Other Books By Henry George
• Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of \"progress and Poverty\"
• Preface to Fourth Edition
• Introductory the Problem
• Introductory the Problem
• Book I Wages and Capital
• Chapter I the Current Doctrine of Wages—Its Insufficiency
• Chapter Ii the Meaning of the Terms
• Chapter Iii Wages Not Drawn From Capital, But Produced By the Labor
• Chapter Iv the Maintenance of Laborers Not Drawn From Capital
• Chapter V the Real Functions of Capital
• Book Ii Population and Subsistence
• Chapter I the Malthusian Theory, Its Genesis and Support
• Chapter Ii Inferences From Facts
• Chapter Iii Inferences From Analogy
• Chapter Iv Disproof of the Malthusian Theory
• Book Iii the Laws of Distribution
• Chapter I the Inquiry Narrowed to the Laws of Distribution—Necessary Relation of These Laws
• Chapter Ii Rent and the Law of Rent
• Chapter Iii of Interest and the Cause of Interest
• Chapter Iv of Spurious Capital and of Profits Often Mistaken For Interest
• Chapter V the Law of Interest
• Chapter Vi Wages and the Law of Wages
• Chapter Vii the Correlation and Co-ordination of These Laws
• Chapter Viii the Statics of the Problem Thus Explained
• Book Iv Effect of Material Progress Upon the Distribution of Wealth
• Chapter I the Dynamics of the Problem Yet to Seek
• Chapter Ii the Effect of Increase of Population Upon the Distribution of Wealth
• Chapter Iii the Effect of Improvements In the Arts Upon the Distribution of Wealth
• Chapter Iv Effect of the Expectation Raised By Material Progress
• Book V the Problem Solved
• Chapter I the Primary Cause of Recurring Paroxysms of Industrial Depression
• Chapter Ii the Persistence of Poverty Amid Advancing Wealth
• Book Vi the Remedy
• Chapter I Insufficiency of Remedies Currently Advocated
• Chapter Ii the True Remedy
• Book Vii Justice of the Remedy
• Chapter I the Injustice of Private Property In Land
• Chapter Ii the Enslavement of Laborers the Ultimate Result of Private Property In Land
• Chapter Iii Claim of Land Owners to Compensation
• Chapter Iv Property In Land Historically Considered
• Chapter V of Property In Land In the United States
• Book Viii Application of the Remedy
• Chapter I Private Property In Land Inconsistent With the Best Use of Land
• Chapter Ii How Equal Rights to the Land May Be Asserted and Secured
• Chapter Iii the Proposition Tried By the Canons of Taxation
• Chapter Iv Indorsements and Objections
• Book IX. Effects of the Remedy: Chapter I of the Effect Upon the Production of Wealth
• Chapter Ii of the Effect Upon Distribution and Thence Upon Production
• Chapter Iii of the Effect Upon Individuals and Classes
• Chapter Iv of the Changes That Would Be Wrought In Social Organization and Social Life
• Book X. The Law of Human Progress: Chapter I the Current Theory of Human Progress—Its Insufficiency
• Chapter Ii Differences In Civilization—To What Due
• Chapter Iii the Law of Human Progress
• Chapter Iv How Modern Civilization May Decline
• Chapter V the Central Truth
• Conclusion the Problem of Individual Life

Chapter VII
The Correlation and Co-ordination of These Laws

The conclusions we have reached as to the laws which govern the distribution of wealth recast a large and most important part of the science of political economy, as at present taught, overthrowing some of its most highly elaborated theories and shedding a new light on some of its most important problems. Yet, in doing this, no disputable ground has been occupied; not a single fundamental principle advanced that is not already recognized.

The law of interest and the law of wages which we have substituted for those now taught are necessary deductions from the great law which alone makes any science of political economy possible—the all-compelling law that is as inseparable from the human mind as attraction is inseparable from matter, and without which it would be impossible to previse or calculate upon any human action, the most trivial or the most important. This fundamental law, that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion, becomes, when viewed in its relation to one of the factors of production, the law of rent; in relation to another, the law of interest; and in relation to a third, the law of wages. And in accepting the law of rent, which, since the time of Ricardo, has been accepted by every economist of standing, and which, like a geometrical axiom, has but to be understood to compel assent, the law of interest and law of wages, as I have stated them, are inferentially accepted, as its necessary sequences. In fact, it is only relatively that they can be called sequences, as in the recognition of the law of rent they too must be recognized. For on what depends the recognition of the law of rent? Evidently upon the recognition of the fact that the effect of competition is to prevent the return to labor and capital being anywhere greater than upon the poorest land in use. It is in seeing this that we see that the owner of land will be able to claim as rent all of its produce which exceeds what would be yielded to an equal application of labor and capital on the poorest land in use.

The harmony and correlation of the laws of distribution as we have now apprehended them are in striking contrast with the want of harmony which characterizes these laws as presented by the current political economy. Let us state them side by side:

In the current statement the laws of distribution have no common center, no mutual relation; they are not the correlating divisions of a whole, but measures of different qualities. In the statement we have given, they spring from one point, support and supplement each other, and form the correlating divisions of a complete whole.