Henry George and the Catholic View of Morality and the Common Good, I

. On the issuance of the first of the modern social encyclicals, Rerum Novarum, Henry George, the American economist and social philosopher, criticized its author, Pope Leo XIII, for defending a limited right to own land and for limiting the right of private ownership of labor products. George did so by reasoning from Locke's ground that each human has a property right in one's person. George distinguished between possession (and use) and ownership of land on the ground of the common good. That required equality of mutual opportunity, which George would achieve by a Single Tax on all land values. Land reform, he held, would lead to moral reform, and thus to a society based on justice. Pope Leo goes beyond the Schoolmen in stressing a natural right to property, including land, which he asserted must be regarded as sacred. This right, he said, was not absolute, but subject to be used, according to God's Will, for the benefit of others. George looked to a change in the economic structure by reform of land tenure and use to establish a just social order; Leo to religion and the church, the government, moral individuals and voluntary associations to do so.