Quiz: Progress and Poverty

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. How does George propose to define capital?

   All wealth that may support human existence or facilitate production Accumulated land and labour Whatever the owner intends to use to maintain productive labour Wealth in course of exchange
2. 2. What did John Stuart Mill propose, according to VII.3?

   That the state take future rises in land value not due to the owner That rents be fixed permanently by courts That land be confiscated without compensation That the state buy all land at its market price at once, with bonds
3. 3. How, in George’s account, does Darwin describe the struggle for existence?

   As a law that does not apply to civilized human beings As a refutation of Malthus’s two ratios of increase As Malthus’s doctrine applied to all animals and plants As a discovery he owed to Adam Smith
4. 4. Why, according to George, do labour-saving inventions not simply shorten working time?

   Because inventions always require more labour to build, tend and repair the machines Because employers combine to prevent any shortening of the working day by law Because population immediately rises to absorb the whole gain in output Because desires are unlimited, so added power yields more wealth
5. 5. Which earlier school does George say proposed what he proposes?

   The German Historical School The Ricardian socialists, such as Hodgskin The English Chartists The French Physiocrats of Quesnay and Turgot
6. 6. According to the Introductory, what accompanies the arrival of the locomotive in a growing community?

   Higher wages for all Free schools The tramp The end of beggary
7. 7. What follows, for George, from Ricardo’s law of rent?

   Wages and interest get only what rent leaves: the produce of the poorest land in use Rent forms part of every product’s price, so consumers pay it in the end Rent rises only when wages rise, so landowners and labourers share an interest Interest determines rent, since land is valued by capitalising its yield
8. 8. Which drawback of his plan does George openly concede in Book IX, chapter 2?

   It would increase public debt It would lessen the intensity of the pursuit of wealth It would slow the adoption of new labour-saving machinery It would reduce the efficiency of labour in the short run
9. 9. What does George identify as the main initiating cause of industrial depressions?

   Contraction of the currency Overproduction of manufactured goods Overconsumption and extravagant living Speculative advance in land values
10. 10. What does George say would happen if productive labour in London ceased entirely?

    Capital would flow in from abroad to maintain the workers for years The city could live for years on its accumulated wealth Only the poor would suffer, since the rich live on their capital Within months hardly one of its people would be left alive
11. 11. What fact about Ireland does George use to show that it was not overpopulated?

    Its population was smaller than England’s even at its peak Its landlords lived on their estates Even during the famine it exported food Its potato yields were the highest in Europe
12. 12. What does George’s use of Lamb’s roast-pig story stand for?

    Believing land must be owned to be improved The waste caused by protective tariffs on food The cruelty of Chinese landlords to their tenants The origin of rent in land cleared by setting fire to the forest
13. 13. What image does George use for the effect of the new productive forces on society?

    A pyramid slowly sinking into sand A ladder whose lower rungs are sawn off as the rich climb higher A wedge raising those above it and crushing those below A rising tide that lifts all boats, the humblest with the rest
14. 14. Why does George refuse to use “profits” as the return to capital?

    Profits arise only in commerce and manufacture, never in agriculture It mixes wages of superintendence and risk with interest Ricardo had already abolished the term in his own Principles Profits are always smaller than rent, and so not worth separate treatment
15. 15. How does George judge the abolition of England’s feudal military tenures?

    As the origin of English free trade and of England’s commercial greatness As a triumph of the spirit of freedom over the burdens of the feudal system As the cause of the enclosure of the commons and the rise of a landless class As landholders seizing public revenue and shifting its cost onto consumers
16. 16. What does George’s example of the Marin County redwoods illustrate?

    Railroads open distant forests to the market and so lower the price of timber in the cities Land held out of use for higher future prices forces production to worse or more distant sites The exhaustion of natural resources by careless overuse drives the cost of lumber ever upward in the city Public ownership of forests protects them better than private owners who are intent on quick profit
17. 17. According to George, what is the only real limit to industry?

    The market demand for commodities The number of laborers available Access to natural material The amount of capital accumulated
18. 18. Where did George first briefly state the views of Progress and Poverty, according to his preface?

    In a series of lectures at the University of California In the pamphlet “Our Land and Land Policy” (1871) In an article in the New York Tribune In a speech to the Workingmen’s Party of California
19. 19. Why, according to Smith in the passage George quotes, are wages high in new colonies?

    Capital is more abundant in the colonies than in the old countries of Europe Cheap, plentiful land lets laborers soon become landlords themselves Few women and children emigrate Colonial governments fix high minimum wages by law for all hired labour
20. 20. Where does George locate the differences we call differences of civilization?

    In climate alone In innate differences between races In the society’s web of knowledge, beliefs and institutions In the hereditary improvement of individual minds
21. 21. By what method does George say the common right to land can be recognised without “shock or dispossession”?

    Nationalising all land and leasing it back at public auction Abolishing all taxation save that upon land values Limiting the acreage any one person may own Buying out landowners with interest-bearing government bonds
22. 22. What example does George use from China against the Malthusian rate of increase?

    Peking’s population under the Ming, flat for centuries The imperial family of the Kangxi emperor The Chinese emigrants to California Confucius’s descendants, only about 22,000 after 2,150 years
23. 23. Whose proposal does George recall at the opening of Book IX as the forerunner of his own?

    Ricardo’s tax on the produce of land Mill’s tax on the unearned increment Smith’s tax on London ground-rents Quesnay’s single tax on rent, the impôt unique
24. 24. Why were wages so high in California in 1849, according to George?

    The placer mines lay on unappropriated land open to anyone Strong unions of miners forced employers to pay very high rates Workers were scarce because of the Civil War Gold coin was abundant, so prices and wages were inflated alike
25. 25. What does George say destroyed Rome?

    The superior cavalry and military technique of the Goths and Huns A sudden cooling of climate that ruined Italian harvests The spread of Christianity among the legions and the court Inequality: great estates replacing free husbandmen
26. 26. What remedy does George announce in “The True Remedy”?

    A graduated income tax Making land common property State ownership of all means of production Dividing land equally among all citizens
27. 27. Which three elements of material progress does George distinguish at the start of Book IV?

    Accumulation of capital; growth of foreign trade; colonisation Free trade; universal education; democratic government Mechanisation; urbanisation; the spread of credit Population; the arts of production and exchange; knowledge, government and morals
28. 28. Which maxim of admiralty law does George adapt into “Production is always the mother of wages”?

    “Freight is the mother of wages” “Wages are the price of labour” “No cure, no pay” “The ship owes its crew”
29. 29. How did the California gold miners treat the gold-bearing land, according to George?

    As private property sold at public auction As common property, held only so long as it was worked As the first discoverer’s, his heirs’ forever As state land leased to a single company
30. 30. According to George, the Essay on Population was written as a reply to which work?

    Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation Godwin’s Inquiry concerning Political Justice Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
31. 31. What, in George’s formula, is the law of human progress?

    Capital accumulation Struggle for existence Association in equality Hereditary improvement
32. 32. What does George’s island of one hundred men illustrate?

    Population always outruns the food supply on a closed island Owning all the land equals owning all the people on it Division of labour multiplies the productivity of every man Free trade benefits small nations
33. 33. What “enormous fact” does George say the evolutionary theory of progress cannot explain?

    The rapid growth of American cities in a single century Civilizations that advanced far and then stood still The survival of the fittest throughout the natural world The existence of articulate language among all peoples of the earth
34. 34. What difference between people and animals does George illustrate with jay-hawks and chickens?

    Men eat fewer chickens as they grow richer Jay-hawks breed faster than men and outrun their food More jay-hawks mean fewer chickens; more men, more chickens Chickens are limited by space, men by food
35. 35. According to George, which class above the mere labourer has most to gain from the single tax?

    Railroad shareholders Working farmers who own and till small farms Holders of government bonds Large urban ground landlords
36. 36. What newspaper report does George cite in his Conclusion as he wonders whether sacrifice ends in oblivion?

    The trial of the Paris Communards The death of a striking railroad worker in Pittsburgh The execution of three Nihilists at Kiev The assassination of a Russian tsar by bomb-throwers
37. 37. In George’s parable of the first settler on the savannah, why does his land become enormously valuable?

    He improves the soil by years of drainage and tillage He discovers coal and iron beneath it The government grants him a railroad right of way A city grows around it, making labour there far more productive
38. 38. How were American whaling crews paid, in George’s example?

    By fixed monthly wages advanced before the voyage In shares of the shipping company By a bonus from the owners’ capital at the end of the voyage By a “lay,” a proportion of the catch
39. 39. What happened in California, according to George, as the transcontinental railroad neared completion?

    A boom in immigration from the East raised wages to new heights across the state Gold was rediscovered in the Sierra, and placer mining revived for years The state abandoned its gold coin currency for federal greenbacks Land prices ran ahead, checking production; depression set in
40. 40. According to George in VII.1, what is the only rightful title to exclusive possession?

    Grant by the sovereign or the law of the land Long, undisturbed possession by one’s forebears Priority of occupation, the first to settle Exertion of labour in production
41. 41. How does George propose to make land common property?

    By taxing away rent, leaving owners their titles By declaring all land public property and auctioning its leases By limiting each family to a homestead of 160 acres By buying out the landowners with interest-bearing state bonds
42. 42. What does George give as the cause of interest?

    The power of tools to make labour more productive, a gain in which the lender rightly shares Nature’s reproductive forces and the gains of exchange, which make capital increase The scarcity of money, which lets lenders demand a premium from every borrower in the market The reward of abstinence, paid to the capitalist for postponing his own consumption to a later day
43. 43. What fact does George cite against the theory that wages depend on the ratio of labour to capital?

    Wages and interest rise and fall together, as in California Wages are higher in old countries than in new, thinly settled ones Interest is always lowest where wages are highest Wages in England rose steadily while the rate of interest fell
44. 44. What does George say placing all taxes on land value would amount to?

    Dividing the land equally among all citizens Confiscating all buildings along with the land Paying landowners compensation in government bonds Putting the land up at auction to whoever pays the state the most rent
45. 45. What does George’s example of Mohammed Ali’s tax on date-trees show?

    That Egypt’s land was held in common That indirect taxes are easiest to collect That taxing improvements can destroy production, unlike taxing land That luxury taxes fall on the rich, not on the cultivator
46. 46. Where does George say the “new barbarians” who could destroy modern civilization will come from?

    The squalid quarters of great cities The steppes of Central Asia, as in the past Colonial frontiers in Africa and Asia Rival empires in Europe
47. 47. Which schools does George claim to unite?

    Carey with the Manchester free traders Malthus and Mill with Owen and Fourier The Physiocrats with the mercantilists Smith and Ricardo with Proudhon and Lassalle
48. 48. In a contest of endurance like a strike, who does George say are the real opponents?

    Labourers and landowners Employers and the state Labourers and capitalists Skilled and unskilled workers
49. 49. What does George conclude from the fall of wages in California since 1849?

    Wages fell because capital left for the East Labour produces more than ever, so distribution must be at fault The exhaustion of the placers proves Malthus right Immigration from China lowered wages
50. 50. What illustration does George use to show that greed comes from insecurity, not human nature?

    Soldiers foraging on campaign Steerage and cabin meals on early California steamers Miners staking claims in the first rush to the Sacramento Prisoners sharing scant rations in a state penitentiary