“So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent.”

Can you sing "Henry George was a pre-communist"?

Points out the basic different point of view of liberals and conservatives: conservatives point of view "I do good and progress", liberals "We do good and progress". Which is preferable a dog eat dog society, or a cooperative society.

PS: Carnegie built his steel empire in a dog eat dog fashion, brutalizing his employees and competitors. He became the richest man in the world and then gave it all away. A good example of the dichotomy between the two approaches. Those he brutalized would certainly have enjoyed a little more of his fortune via better wages and conditons. In effect they are the ones who gave their labor away for the construction of the Carnegie libraries we see everywhere. He gets the credit but it was built by the labor of brutalized steel workers.

"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic, inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a monied aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country." ...Andrew Jackson

And when Waffler woke up today...he was still a communist. :)

Waff, I suspect that those "brutalized Steel workers" got paid for their efforts along with the workers who built all the libraries that Carnigie financed. As to "brutalized" you can't top those slave labor camps that were in good old socialist Soviet Russia. And J Carlton is right on both of his comments.

jim K...what Waffler and others fail to realize when they talk about those brutalized workers is that they were "brutalized" with the cooperation of local governments who were paid off to help enforce said brutalization. How else did the police end up busting heads when the workers complained? The solution is not MORE government!

Henry George is proof positive that Progressivism (Communism/Collectivism) had it's beginnings well before Woodrow Wilson.

Carnegie's own daughter has complained about the way her father did business, got rich. Thankfully he got progressive in his old age, which goes to show that their is a little bit of conservative and progressive in the best of us. So let us not get so personal concerning these labels. .