Poverty

And it searched only four years before this hardy pioneer was numbered with the slain.

at the end of that period while at work on some timber about four miles from his home he was shot dead by a bullet of a sulking savage and his scalped remains were found the next morning by his afflicted family upon sustaining this heavy loss the widow was left alone in the inhospitable wilderness with her three sons and two daughters Poverty compelled a family separation, and all the children but Thomas bade a farewell to their sorrowing mother.

To seek other homes in other parts, the second son migrated to Indiana, and the rest to other portions of Kentucky.

The elder of the brothers, Mordecai, lived long in Kentucky, and afterward removed to Hancock County, Illinois, but soon after died there.

This is an audio version of Astral Codex X, Scott Alexander's Substack.

If you like it, you can subscribe at astralcodex10.substack.com. Hi, this is Lars Doucet, author of the book review of Henry George's Progress and Poverty that won the first ACX book review contest, as well as the three-part follow-up guest post series, Does Georgism Work? A lot has happened since then, including Land Value Tax, or LVT, enablement laws passing this year in two US states, and the election of LVT-friendly national leaders in the UK and South Korea.

As for me, I now work full-time at the Centre for Land Economics and write for Progress and Poverty Substack.

I'd like to reflect on what I wrote five years ago, what I was right about, what I've changed my mind on, and what the outlook for LVT is in 2026.

But first, here's a brief summary for those who either have no idea what I'm talking about or just need a refresher.

1.

Progress and Poverty In 2021, I wrote a book review for ACX on the book Progress and Poverty, the magnum opus of the famed 19th century economist and populist firebrand Henry George.

If I had to summarise the book in a single sentence, I would put it this way.

And those are your richer retirement villages, the leafy green suburb homes that one thinks of.

And then also community-based care organizations like ourselves, like Ekamalabantu, like another organization called GARPA, Grandmothers Against AIDS and Poverty.

and also other groups like Age in Action, but also academics and even the government.

We had DSD on it.

You may be poor, but you can marry somebody and prove it to be the end of your life.

I know someone who married, from the day he married, he became Poverty ended in his life.

As soon as he married, his father-in-law bought him a brand new car.

Yes.

maybe like something goes awry but for the most part it's like either you're learning like mini lessons on the supernatural or it's like slice of life and you're looking more at the person's day-to-day interactions with other people other characters but i i definitely wasn't expecting the the weight of it

yeah indeed quite heavy um so If I was going to start with the character or enter character work here, I would say Poverty was the main character in

the

book.

So there has always been looting, and there have always been individuals who know the territory and are able to, you know, bring people or themselves conduct those researches and then try to profit.

Now, the very specific case that you mentioned in Syria and Iraq has another variation, and that is that Poverty is a major issue.

And especially in conflict, of course, where societies are affected by the conflict, you will have people who, not necessarily just to profit, but literally to put food on the table for subsistent reasons, want to find those objects and are hoping to be able to sell those objects.

They might be repository of knowledge of the land and they know where things can be found.