Henry George on Land Ownership: A Comment on Pullen

Did George alienate many by presenting his reform program as the institution of a new form of restricted land possession rather than as the retention of traditional ownership with a substantial land tax imposed? It seems doubtful, yet the distinction merits further exploration and the peculiar and hard‐to‐implement nature of the tax and the difficulty of reconciling it with George's distrust of government needs to be stressed. Ideally, George might have preferred complete government ownership of land but his policy proposals were pragmatically adapted to the realities of his own society. The extent of the egalitarianism and aid to the landless implied in his program is questioned.     

Henry George and the Institution of Private Property in Land: A Property Rights Approach

Abstract . Conflicting statements concerning whether the implementation of Henry George's single tax proposal would destroy the institution of private property in land have appeared in the literatures of economics and other disciplines. A number of writers have implied that the taxation of Ricardian rent is equivalent to land nationalization. In the main, followers of George have denied that the single tax would abolish private property in land. Their claim is based on the fact that land titles would remain in private hands under the single tax. Since the whole question of private property is beset with ideological difficulties, a property rights approach is applied to this issue in an attempt to resolve the controversy. The conclusions are that the actual implementation of George's system would not destroy private property in land and that it is incorrect to equate the single tax with land nationalization.     

Henry George's Land Reform: A Comment on Pullen

Henry George described his proposal to tax land rent as tantamount to abolition of the private ownership of land . However, Pullen's suggestion that it might better be described as conditional, modified, or restricted ownership falls foul of the fact that all ownership is conditional, modified, or restricted in some sense. Whereas, for George, the private ownership of labor products may be positively justified on grounds of equity, and is subject only to conditions that apply to ownership in general, the private ownership of land may be permitted , but only on grounds of social utility, and only if a radical condition (social appropriation of most of its rent) is met that satisfies the demands of equity.     

Henry George:

ABSTRACT While generally known today for his famous proposal for a Single Tax, Henry George has not been widely recognized as one of the first economists to write about the possibility of political market failure. Based on his appreciation for the allocational efficiency of markets and his suspicion of government intervention, George was an early advocate of public choice ideas who repeatedly warned of the dangers of rent seeking.     

Natural Rights: Henry George and the Economic Fruits of a Good Society

This article examines Henry George's understanding of how natural rights grow out of a just society. His views were influenced by the 17^th‐century proponents of natural rights, but cannot be subsumed under them. The connection of freedom to obligation affirmed by George's classical Protestantism allowed him to overcome tension between theories of natural law and natural rights. Rights and responsibilities were not abstractions for George. His practical solution for restructuring society offers a modern path to a more just society in which rights would abound.     

The Henry George Theorem and the Entrepreneurial Process: Turning Henry George on his Head

This chapter offers an interpretation of the Henry George Theorem (HGT) that brings it squarely into the study and analysis of entrepreneurship somewhat loosening its ties to the subfield of urban economics. I draw on the pioneering work of Spencer Heath whose insights about the viability of proprietary communities were developed further by his grandson, Spencer Heath MacCallum who, in 1970, recognized that private real estate developers sometimes make their capital gains (mostly) by creating useful public spaces that others enjoy. I also draw inspiration from Fred Foldvary's effort in 1994 to synthesize the pubic goods problem in economics with the Henry George Theorem in urban economics. While the real estate owner—developer does emerge on my pages in a somewhat more favourable light than as originally portrayed by Henry George in his Progress and Poverty in 1879, I offer a realistic appraisal of the duplicitous behaviours required of such entrepreneurs. in the context of the modern regulatory state. Real estate development remains a 'hot button' item in local politics, and real estate developers must become genuine 'political entrepreneurs' if they are to complete their projects in a timely way and capture business profits. It is a complicated story that the HGT helps make intelligible in terms of human action.     

Henry George and Europe:

A bstract Henry George played a tremendous role in the development and growth of the British Liberal party and of British Liberalism, one no less significant than his role in that of British non-Marxian socialism One of the Liberal leaders who gained a place in history, Joseph Chamberlain, had already been a land reformer before he learned about Georgism Chamberlain used the Georgist analysis, but he and the other 19th century Radical Liberals worked up a program for a broader distribution of landed property, not for the abolition of the private land monopoly. The same tactic in Ireland entrenched private land monopoly thereby making many renters small holders But George also supplied the analysis and the context of the Liberal campaign And later Liberal leaders–notably David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill (as well as Liberals in the Labour Party. Philip Snowden, Herbert Morrison, Ramsay MacDonald and Josiah Wedgwood) –came close to making the taxation of land values the law of the kingdom     

Henry George and Europe:

A bstract Henry George's Progress and Poverty was translated into German and published in Germany in 1881, a little more than a year after its publication in America But it was not through George's own words that his ideas first became known there Germany already had land reformers , organized in small societies They made his teachings known However, unlike the case in Britain, Germany's leftists did not welcome George's land reform ideas True, Karl Marx recognized and wrote about the role the land question played in the exploitation of labor and in his third volume of Capital took basic positions parallel to George's, it was published long after Progress and Poverty The hostility of Wilhelm Ltebknecbt toward land reform reflected the German public's disinterest in the land question and may explain why Marx concentrated on appealing to the urban industrial worker     

Henry George and Organized Labor:

A bstract . Henry George supported labor unions and was proud of his membership in the Printers' Union. But he did not regard them as the final solution of labor exploitation. He championed labor as one of the producing classes. His foray into politics as the candidate of organized labor's third party was characteristic; he had had much involvement in politics earlier. Although he supported labor's immediate demands, he sought mainly to use his candidacy to build a constituency for the single tax. Samuel Gompers , then head of the American Federation of Labor , at first worked for George's election but came to the belief that the unions alone should direct and control their political efforts. This view prevailed, though he and George remained good friends. But it is now a question whether Gompers' policy, at this time, serves labor's best interests.     

Sun Yat-sen and Henry George:

A bstract . Of Sun Yat-sen's "Three Principles of the People," the third principle, namely the People's Livelihood, forms the ultimate goal for social welfare. In this principle Dr. Sun tried to syncretize the economic theories of the West and adapt them within the Chinese context.
The equalization of land ownership through taxation of self-assessed land values, and the land value increment tax are the most essential ingredients of the third principle. Underlying Dr. Sun's concept of equalization of land ownership is the unearned increment theory of Henry George.
Dr. Sun conceived of agrarian reform as basic to the solution of the livelihood problem. Henry George also saw the cause of distress and destitution in the defective land tenure structure and the monopoly of land.     

Henry George and Henry M. Hyndman, I:

Abstract . Henry George, an individualistic American reformer and economist, and Henry M. Hyndman, an English democratic Marxist, formed a tenuous alliance in 1882. It was based on their mutual advocacy of land nationalization and Irish land tenure reform. During the next few years, the tensions derived from differing weltanschauungen and from differing programmatic directions gradually weakened their mutual bond, despite a continual, but grudging, mutual personal regard.     

A Property Rights Paradox: George and Rothbard on the Conservation of Environmental Resources

A bstract . Murray N. Rothbard is recognized as one of the most articulate modern critics of Henry George's land value tax. A leading libertarian thinker, Rothbard condemns George's recommendation that government act to affect private transactions in land, arguing that such interventions infringe on previously defined private property rights. However, Rothbard's social system has no explicit mechanism for accommodating the emergence of tradeable property rights to newly recognized environmental resources. In effect, Rothbard calls for controls on such resources—no trading. Henry George, on the other hand, provides for the evolution of new property rights and their emergence into private markets. The paradox here is that George's solution to the property rights question might accommodate the social yearnings of one of his most severe critics, Murray N. Rothbard.     

Henry George and George Bernard Shaw: Comparison and Contrast

A bstract . Henry George , the American economist and social philosopher , and George Bernard Shaw , the British playwright and social reformer , were two famous personalities of the last quarter of the 19th century, each a prophet in his own way. The two men probably never met, though Shaw credited George's oratory as well as his classic. Progress and Poverty , with awakening his interest in economic issues, and to his last days acknowledged his debt to George. Both were deeply committed to ending poverty. But there the similarity ended—George was devoted to ethical democracy, Shaw to socialist dictatorship. George saw cooperative individualism as the goal of social reconstruction; Shaw dreamed of a Superman, and fancied himself a supporter of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, and of Soviet Russian'communism.'Shaw saw the purpose of life as "being used for a (mighty) purpose;" George saw it as blazing a trail for'progressive humanity,'cooperating with the Creator in creating a moral world.     

Henry George on Thomas Robert Malthus

A bstract . The present era marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry George and the 200th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Robert Malthu's Essay in the Principles of Population. In observance of these historic dates, this paper examines George's critique of the work of Malthus and explores the ideological functions that both men served. George contended that Malthusian population theory served as a means of social control by supporting the landed class and strongly opposing ameliorative public policy. George, on the other hand, lashed out against the private ownership of land and advocated policies of equality and social justice .     

John Dewey and Henry George: The Socialization of Land as a Prerequisite for a Democratic Public

John Dewey frequently praised Henry George, author of a plan to confiscate land values with a “single tax.” Scholars have failed to account for Dewey's support of George. Some have argued that it should not be taken seriously because it is at odds with their interpretation of Dewey's philosophy. This article demonstrates that Dewey perceived the socialization of land values as an essential step toward creating a true democracy. Furthermore, Dewey's interest in George was not an aberration; it was exemplary of his faith in ideology, theory, and transformative social policy. Despite contentions to the contrary, pragmatists of the early 20^th century never emphasized skepticism, moderation, or rote empiricism. In fact, Dewey embraced the philosophy of Henry George as a general theory of history of society. During the Great Depression, Dewey attacked the piecemeal reformism of the New Deal in favor of the comprehensive vision of Henry George.     

Henry George's Influence on John Bates Clark:

A bstract John Bates Clark's marginal productivity theory of income distribution has been portrayed as being derived from David Ricardo . This article traces the influence Henry George had on that theory in providing a standard for measuring labor's addition to aggregate output as comparable to what could be earned on no-rent land . Following George, Jobn Bates Clark extended that standard to include no-rent capital.