Lesson 9: How Modern Civilization May Decline

Stuff to read: How Modern Civilization May Decline

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1. If there is widespread poverty in society, how does this reverse the trend toward increased political equality? (10 pts.)

2. According to Henry George, what is the inevitable fate of a corrupt democracy? Can you cite examples of this? (9 pts.)

This transformation of popular government into despotism of the vilest and most degrading kind, which must inevitably result from the unequal distribution of wealth, is not a thing of the far future. It has already begun and is rapidly going on under our eyes. Voting is done more recklessly; it is harder to arouse the people to the necessity of reforms and more difficult to carry them out; political differences are ceasing to be differences of principle, and abstract ideas are losing their power; parties are passing into the control of what in general government would be oligarchies and dictatorships. These are all evidences of political decline.

3. Comment on the paragraph above in the light of today's politics. (9 pts.)

4. Comment on this illustration. What historical allusions and/or modern-day trends does it depict? (9 pts.)

5. How has society ignored what Henry George calls "the fundamental law of justice"? (9 pts.)

Labor may be likened to a man who as he carries home his earnings is waylaid by a series of robbers. One demands this much, and another that much, but last of all stands one who demands all that is left, save just enough to enable the victim to maintain life and come forth next day to work.

6. Comment on the above passage from Henry George's Protection or Free Trade. (9 pts.)

7. In this course we claim with great confidence that if Henry George's economic remedy were implemented in full, the general rate of wages would rise. How would that come about? (10 pts.)

8. Briefly summarize the most important points of the course. Be sure to include: the factors of production, the principles of distribution, and the basic mechanism of the boom/bust cycle. (35 pts.)

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