Call To Action: Send e-mail requests to the Google Doodle team for a Doodle Tribute graphic celebrating the birthday of Henry George on the Google front page.

Henry George, the progressive era American author and social economic reformer, was born on September 2nd, 1839. He is credited with being the most influential proponent of land value taxation and the value capture of land and resource rents. George is also probably one of the most famous reformers people have never heard of. His ideas are challenging to the injustice of the status quo and they are still relevant to this day. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), which sold millions of copies worldwide and probably more than any other American book before that time, is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of the land value tax as a remedy.

Help us to raise the awareness of Henry George's evolutionary ideas in an effort to make the world a more fair and just place. We are proposing to create a Google Doodle tribute graphic for display on his birthday, September 2nd, so millions of people around the world, many for the first time, can learn about his works and ideas. Simply copy and paste the brief e-mail template below, make any changes you see fit, and send it over to the Google Doodle team, or e-mail your own written request directly to the Google Doodle team. While it's impacting to offer unique proposals as well, an organized approach is beneficial too. If enough people bring it to their attention, perhaps we will see an educational, interactive graphic on September 2nd.

“The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence.”

—Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879)

For more information about Google Doodles, click here.

The e-mail address to send the proposals too is proposals@google.com

E-MAIL SUBJECT: Birthday of Social Reformer Henry George for Google Doodle on September 2nd

E-MAIL MESSAGE:

Hello Google Doodle Team,

I would like to propose a doodle tribute to the Birthday of famous yet largely unknown Socio-Economic Reformer Henry George for September 2nd. Henry George was a household name in the late 1800s and about as well known as Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison. He became internationally known as he traveled the world speaking and managed to spawn a school of economics of lasting impact based on his prolific writing and speaking as well as his dedicated pursuit of economic justice and political change.

Similar to Founding Father Thomas Paine, Economic Philosopher Adam Smith, and Human Rights Activist Martin Luther King, George's published ideas about economic equality and Earth sharing challenged the prevailing policy of the time and still do to this day. He is seldom included in curricula and therefore not as well known these days although his ideas are still widely relevant today. Many people who remain famous were influenced by him, such as Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stiglitz, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Ida B. Wells, Leo Tolstoy, Sun Yat Sen, Teddy as well as FDR, David Lloyd George, and John Dewey, among others. A follower of George, Lizzie Magie, created the board game Monopoly in 1904 to demonstrate his ideas.

Henry George inspired the economic philosophy known as Georgism, whose main tenet is that people should own what they create, but that everything found in nature, most importantly the value of land, belongs equally to all humanity. George's ideas have been called a response to natural abundance instead of a response to artificial poverty. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), is a treatise on inequality, the cyclic nature of industrialized economies, and the use of the land value tax as a remedy. In opposition to land monopoly as well as social injustice, he stated that people have equal right to the use of land as they have equal right to breathe the air. Georgists also advocate for a form of Universal Basic Income, called a Citizen’s Dividend, to be established with the revenue raised by the state through leasing or taxing land and natural resources for private use, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Here are some websites with additional information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George
http://hgchicago.org/about/who-was-henry-george/
http://www.progress.org
http://www.earthsharing.org

Thanks,

[insert your name]