OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
- Location
- Little Beirut
- Pronouns
- they/she
I'll let Mazda's blog article introduce Henry George and his ideas for those who are unfamiliar.
We think of George today (when we think of him at all) as an intellectual rather than a politician, but he did make a few bids for office in his own right. The most successful of those was his first run for Mayor of New York in 1886. As the candidate of the United Labor Party, he garnered 31% of the vote for a second-place finish, behind Democrat Abram Hewitt but ahead of a young Republican aristocrat named Theodore Roosevelt. What if George had won?
Some creative PODs might be required to overcome Hewitt's 20,000-vote lead (which was almost certainly expanded by fraud), but I'm sure we can think of a few or spot some in the second article linked above. Hewitt was a nominally anti-Tammany Hall candidate backed by Tammany out of fear of handing the election to the radical George. Maybe factional strife in the Democratic Party proves too much to overcome and the nomination goes to a straight-up Tammany stooge, leaving disaffected reformers to sit out or lend their support to George (or to Roosevelt, splitting the vote in George's favor).
Hewitt was not a particularly successful mayor; he served two years, was denied renomination, and the major event of his term seems to have been his pissing off Irish-Americans by refusing to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. His actual historical impacts on the subway and the Cooper Union were independent of his mayoralty. The interest here is what George would do instead. I don't think he could unilaterally introduce a Land Value Tax; I'm not sure the extent of the mayor's powers at this point in time but he probably wouldn't command anything near a majority on the city council. George apparently admitted that he'd only be able to use the office as a pulpit for his big idea. On the other hand, he could use executive power to pursue some of the United Labor Party's reformist and pro-worker policies, such as the establishment of modern building and sanitation inspectorates, the expulsion of Tammany crooks, and the creation of a favorable policing environment for labor unions - the latter of which would be almost unique in the United States at this point in history.
Which takes us to the big picture. The United Labor Party was one of many left-wing, not-explicitly-socialist microparties tied to the pre-AFL labor movement - a movement that was ideologically fractured and treated as illegal almost everywhere. Electing a Mayor of New York would be a huge event, but it's difficult to imagine that it alone could be the springboard for a major reorganization of party politics along class lines. If nothing else, George was a well-known advocate of free trade, while the Knights of Labor - the nearest thing to a national trade union at this point - was staunchly protectionist; they endorsed George in the election but the contradiction could cause trouble if a Mayor George became the figurehead for American labor politics. A Georgist national Labor Party arising in the 1880s and 1890s would be a fascinating TL but it is a tough ask when they would be up against all the might of Gilded Age America.
Finally, it's possible that no matter how many things go right for George in 1886, the powers that be just refuse to let him win and rig the vote much more unambiguously than in OTL. That won't necessarily do much for George's political career, but it could lead to some working-class outrage - and potentially more working-class support for anti-Tammany reformers down the line? If not a strong Labor Party, do we get an early outbreak of left-Republican fusion mayors and a much earlier breakdown of the Democratic machine?
We think of George today (when we think of him at all) as an intellectual rather than a politician, but he did make a few bids for office in his own right. The most successful of those was his first run for Mayor of New York in 1886. As the candidate of the United Labor Party, he garnered 31% of the vote for a second-place finish, behind Democrat Abram Hewitt but ahead of a young Republican aristocrat named Theodore Roosevelt. What if George had won?
Some creative PODs might be required to overcome Hewitt's 20,000-vote lead (which was almost certainly expanded by fraud), but I'm sure we can think of a few or spot some in the second article linked above. Hewitt was a nominally anti-Tammany Hall candidate backed by Tammany out of fear of handing the election to the radical George. Maybe factional strife in the Democratic Party proves too much to overcome and the nomination goes to a straight-up Tammany stooge, leaving disaffected reformers to sit out or lend their support to George (or to Roosevelt, splitting the vote in George's favor).
Hewitt was not a particularly successful mayor; he served two years, was denied renomination, and the major event of his term seems to have been his pissing off Irish-Americans by refusing to participate in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. His actual historical impacts on the subway and the Cooper Union were independent of his mayoralty. The interest here is what George would do instead. I don't think he could unilaterally introduce a Land Value Tax; I'm not sure the extent of the mayor's powers at this point in time but he probably wouldn't command anything near a majority on the city council. George apparently admitted that he'd only be able to use the office as a pulpit for his big idea. On the other hand, he could use executive power to pursue some of the United Labor Party's reformist and pro-worker policies, such as the establishment of modern building and sanitation inspectorates, the expulsion of Tammany crooks, and the creation of a favorable policing environment for labor unions - the latter of which would be almost unique in the United States at this point in history.
Which takes us to the big picture. The United Labor Party was one of many left-wing, not-explicitly-socialist microparties tied to the pre-AFL labor movement - a movement that was ideologically fractured and treated as illegal almost everywhere. Electing a Mayor of New York would be a huge event, but it's difficult to imagine that it alone could be the springboard for a major reorganization of party politics along class lines. If nothing else, George was a well-known advocate of free trade, while the Knights of Labor - the nearest thing to a national trade union at this point - was staunchly protectionist; they endorsed George in the election but the contradiction could cause trouble if a Mayor George became the figurehead for American labor politics. A Georgist national Labor Party arising in the 1880s and 1890s would be a fascinating TL but it is a tough ask when they would be up against all the might of Gilded Age America.
Finally, it's possible that no matter how many things go right for George in 1886, the powers that be just refuse to let him win and rig the vote much more unambiguously than in OTL. That won't necessarily do much for George's political career, but it could lead to some working-class outrage - and potentially more working-class support for anti-Tammany reformers down the line? If not a strong Labor Party, do we get an early outbreak of left-Republican fusion mayors and a much earlier breakdown of the Democratic machine?