Henry Georeg's giant book, which I didn't read in its entirety, isn't super-full of useful stuff, but his thesis is definitely worth getting right. George, writing in the 1870s, is famous for wanting to abolish private property. The reason comes from this formula: Production - Rent = Wages + Interest (171). I didn't quite follow the interest stuff, but for now we can stick with Production-Rent= Wages.
George is trying to solve the problem: why do the richest areas also have the most poverty? (6,9). The answer is that, when land is free, production will equal wages, because people will be their own bosses or work for whoever will pay them as if they were their own boss. However, when land gets built up and production increases, rent goes up. Rent doesn't have to be paid to the landlord; the landlord and the employer can be the same person, and the owner-operator takes the same chunk the operator would have to give to the owner. Based on our formula, now that land is very expensive and all land is owned by someone and workers can't become their own bosses, most of the money produced now goes to the landowner. This means the bottom falls out of wages. Solution: end private property so that labor, which produces capital, can access the capital which it produces, rather than having it sucked up in rent (328) (See also 213, 6).
Other important points George makes:
On Malthus, he argues that Malthus fails to understand how, if we just used the resources we used to make, say, diamonds to feed people, human society could always feed everyone (142). He also points out that larger groups of people generally have more, not less, productive power. George also notes that Darwin called evolutionary theory the application of Malthus to the natural world, meaning we have it backwards when we call the application of Darwinism to humanity "social Darwinism." It would be better put that Darwinism is "biological Malthusianism." The relevant quote is on page 101.
Also, George notes that Malthusian makes the rich feel good, because poverty is the natural mechanism by which population growth is stopped (96, 98). Cue the Ebenezer Scrooge quote about reducing the surplus population here.
Two tiny notes: George mentions the great Chicago fire on p. 148 and the power of railroads (more The Octopus than The Financier) on p. 192.
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I found Progress & Poverty a tough slog the first time I read it, and was amazed when a friend described it as a "page-turner" -- a mystery whose solution she was anxious to get to. I now read it for pleasure.
If you're not aware of the recent abridgment by Bob Drake, I encourage you to check it out. See http://progressandpoverty.org/ (or with a course a http://henrygeorge.org/) or download the MP3s from http://hgchicago.org/audio/.
You might also appreciate the even shorter versions. They're linked from http://www.wealthandwant.com/HG/PP/toc.htm. There's background on P&P at http://www.wealthandwant.com/George_P&P.html
Finally, I'll share the REALLY short version:
All Boasted Charitable Doles Ever Futile.
God Hates Injustice.
Justice Knows Land May Not be Owned.
Poverty Quickly Remedied by Single Tax Upon Value, Work-value Excepted.
Yours Zealously, The Author)
(from Bengough's Primer)
You might also appreciate John Dewey's introduction to a 1928 abridgment of P&P, at http://www.wealthandwant.com/HG/PP/Dewey_Appreciation_HG.html, and also a speech Dewey made on the radio during the Depression, entitled "Steps to Recovery" (1933) http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/Dewey_Steps.htm
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