Abstract

Reuben C. Rutherford's only book, Henry George versus Henry George, is fascinating for several reasons. (1) First, it is a full-length, 326-page critique of Progress and Poverty. Second, each of the major elements of George's system of political economy--labor and wages, capital and interest, population, property rights, human nature and social progress, and so on--is examined at length. Third, Rutherford's approach to the critique is intriguing. As the title of his book suggests, Rutherford proposed to demonstrate George's system was logically inconsistent and filled with contradictions by juxtaposing passages of George's. That is, he proposed to show George contradicts almost all of his own ideas and that all he builds up at one time, he pulls down at another (p. vi). Fourth, the time element associated with the book is interesting. It was published in 1887, yet Rutherford says almost all of it was written in 1882, when he first read George's book. He explains the delay in publication by stating he was persuaded by friends the fame of Progress and Poverty would be transitory and that, hence, the book was not worth criticizing. When it appeared the fame of George's book would endure, Rutherford issued his critique. From an analytical viewpoint, however, several of Rutherford's main arguments had become obsolete well before 1882. Labor and Wage Theory Rutherford was a staunch defender of the unmodified classical wagesfund theory. (2) It is, however, generally agreed the unmodified classical version of theory disappeared from the mainstream of analysis when John Stuart Mill recanted it in 1869. There were, to be sure, numerous efforts to modify the theory to salvage some parts of it. (3) Rutherford seems to have been unaware of the second round of the controversy. At least he never cited, or even alluded to, any of the discussion. * The prerecantation version of the wages-fund theory, defended by Rutherford, presupposed an agricultural economy. (Indeed, it was precisely as agriculture ceased to be the main sector of the economy the theory encountered the most devastating criticism.) It is interesting and perhaps suggestive when Rutherford speaks of people being paid for a job, he speaks of boys who were paid in apples, an agricultural commodity, for their labor. Later, farming is explicitly mentioned as a characteristic industry (pp. 2, 7, 63). The classical theory assumed there was a fixed production period--however long it took the crops to grow. Further, it assumed once the harvest was in, the amount of food available was fixed. No more would be available until the next harvest. That food had to provide for needs of all agricultural laborers until the next harvest since there was simply no other source of food. It then seemed to the classicists the real wages, or means of subsistence, had to be advanced to the laborers. That is, the product of current labor would not be available until the next harvest. But since the laborers had to live day-today from one harvest to the next, the food they received could come only from the last harvest. Last year's crops, then, maintained labor until this year's crops were harvested. Since real wages were paid to the laborers before the product of their current labor was harvested, the term advanced seemed appropriate. Although Rutherford does not always use the word advanced, he surely does speak of labor's being maintained out of a previously accumulated fund while the product is being produced (p. 8). Once the total amount of food, or real wages, was known, the average amount per worker was found by dividing total by the number of workers. Here Malthusian population theory seemed to fit perfectly. If the means of subsistence were fixed and divided among a larger number of people, the average must decrease. It seemed to be a simple arithmetic problem--and we do find Rutherford claiming it to be just that. …

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