Progress and Poverty

The Industrial Revolution was the social transformation from artisanal crafts to mass-scale production facilitated by technological advancements. In Europe and North America, the Industrial Revolution occurred in two waves: between 1760 and 1840 and from 1870 until 1914.

Jeffersonian Democracy is named after Thomas Jefferson and refers to an ideal form of democracy, in the American view, based on republicanism, liberty, and virtue.

The single tax on land value is Henry George’s proposal to solve the problem of growing socioeconomic inequality in industrialized societies. Such a tax would effectively end private land ownership, making land and its resources available to communities to fund public spending through this tax.

The Malthusian theory is named after the British demographer Thomas Malthus. The theory analyzes population growth in relation to food supply and suggests that the population grows faster than food.

In the Western philosophical tradition, natural law is based on the belief that there is a set of ethical and philosophical rules, divinely ordained by God or the natural order, that inherently guide human behavior. One of the most famous natural law theorists is St. Thomas Aquinas.

Political economy is an area of study that is focused on the relationship between the political system and economics.

Wages are the “compensation paid to a hired person for his services” (31).