Henry George and Immigration

• Author: JOHN H. BECK
• Published date: 01 October 2012
• Date: 01 October 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2012.00853.x

IMMIGRATION

Henry George and Immigration

By JOHN H. BECK*

ABSTRACT. Henry George’s opposition to free immigration may be

surprising in light of his positions on other aspects of economic theory

and policy. This essay reviews George’s statements on immigration

policy, discusses inconsistencies of these statements with his positions

on free trade and Malthusian population theory, compares George’s

views with the neoclassical economic perspective on immigration, and

suggests that implementation of George’s policy of taxing land values

would share the gains from immigration in a manner that might

reduce opposition to open borders.

George’s Views on Immigration

Henry George’s views on immigration policy have received limited

attention. Hansen (1969: 65) noted that George’s “anti-Asian immigra-

tion policy was an exception” to his philosophy favoring freedom

of opportunity, opposing monopoly, and supporting free trade.

However, George’s opposition to immigration was aimed specifically

at immigration from Asia. Wenzer (2003, 2: xxii) notes that George’s

attitude toward immigrants from southern and eastern Europe did not

exhibit “the virulent prejudice he turned on the Chinese.”

Problems associated with Chinese immigration were an early stimu-

lus to George’s study of economics. In The Science of Political

Economy, George (1992: 200) gave a brief account of how he was led

to write Progress and Poverty and described his earliest writing on the

topic of immigration:

In 1869 I went East on newspaper business, returning to California in the

early summer of 1870. John Russell Young was at that time managing editor

of the New York Tribune, and I wrote for him an article on “The Chinese

*John H. Beck is Professor of Economics, Gonzaga University.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 4 (October, 2012).

© 2012 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

on the Pacific Coast,” a question that had begun to arouse attention there,

taking the side popular among the working-classes of the Coast, in

opposition to the unrestricted immigration of that people.

The New York Tribune article voiced concerns about cultural differ-

ences similar to arguments of conservative opponents of immigration

today, describing the Chinese immigrants as having low moral stan-

dards and questioning whether they could be assimilated into American

culture. From an economic perspective, George’s concern was that

Chinese immigration would reduce wage rates. In George’s analysis this

effect was not simply due to downward pressure on wages from the

increased supply of labor associated with any immigration; the reduc-

tion in wage rates was uniquely associated with Chinese immigration

because the Chinese immigrants would accept a lower standard of

living (Wenzer 2003: Vol. 1, 161).

[T]heir standard of comfort is very much lower than that of our own people

– very much lower than that of any European immigrants who come

among us. This fact enables them to underbid all competitors in the labor

market....[T]hus in every case in which Chinese comes into fair compe-

tition with white labor, the whites must either retire from the field or come

down to the Chinese standard of living.

George wrote 39 more articles on Chinese immigration published in

California newspapers in 1869 and 1870 including one article in the

Oakland Daily Transcript of November 20, 1869, in which he quoted

a letter from John Stuart Mill agreeing with George’s conclusion that a

large Chinese immigration would reduce wages. However, Mill was

more optimistic than George about the long-run potential for educa-

tion to raise the Chinese to the level of Americans (Wenzer 2003:

Vol. 1, 173–177).

George’s continued opposition to Chinese immigration is also found

in a lecture on “The Study of Political Economy” delivered to students

at the University of California in 1877 and published in The Popular

Science Monthly in 1880:

In connection with the discussion of Chinese immigration, you have,

doubtless, over and over again heard it contended that cheap labor, which

would reduce the cost of production, is precisely equivalent to labor-saving

machinery, and, as machinery operates to increase wealth, so would cheap

labor. This conclusion is jumped at from the fact that cheap labor and

Henry George and Immigration 967