Labor may be likened to a man who as he carries home his earnings is waylaid by a series of robbers. One demands this much, and another that much, but last of all stands one who demands all that is left, save just enough to enable the victim to maintain life and come forth next day to work. So long as this last robber remains, what will it benefit such a man to drive off any or all of the other robbers?
Such is the situation of labor today throughout the civilized world. And the robber that takes all that is left, is private property in land. Improvement, no matter how great, and reform, no matter how beneficial in itself, cannot help that class who deprived of all right to the use of the material elements have only the power to labor—a power as useless in itself as a sail without wind, a pump without water, or a saddle without a horse.
From Protection or Free Trade by Henry George:
I recommend the full chapter, and book.