section_path: Ethical, political and religious beliefs/Georgism
section_name: Georgism
paragraph_text: Georgism
  
  Towards the end of his life, Tolstoy became occupied with the economic theory and social philosophy of Georgism. He incorporated it approvingly into works such as Resurrection (1899), the book that was a major cause for his excommunication. He spoke with great admiration of Henry George, stating once that "People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree." He also wrote a preface to George's journal Social Problems. Tolstoy and George both rejected private property in land (the most important source of income for Russian aristocracy that Tolstoy heavily criticized). They also rejected a centrally planned socialist economy. Because Georgism requires an administration to collect land rent and spend it on infrastructure, some assume that this embrace moved Tolstoy away from his anarchist views. However, anarchist versions of Georgism have been proposed since then. Resurrection, in which the nobleman Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov realizes that the earth cannot really be owned and that everyone should have equal access to its resources and advantages, hints that Tolstoy had such a view. Other works, such as Tolstoy's unfinished play "The Light that Shines in the Darkness” and the short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?”, suggest Tolstoy's approval of small communities with local governance to manage the collective land rents for common goods, and heavily criticize state institutions such as the justice system.