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Enemies or Allies? and Francis One Century Later Author(s): John K. Whitaker Source: Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 1891-1915 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2729882 Accessed: 15-10-2018 00:54 UTC

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This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XXXV (December 1997), pp. 1891-1915

Enemies or Allies? Henry George and One Century Later

JOHN K. WHITAKER University of Virginia

This paper has benefitted from valuable comments by the Journal's referees.

THE YEAR 1897 marked the deaths of Walker was to be one of the earliest the two writers who first brought and bitterest critics of Progress and American economic thought to promi- Poverty, y6t there were important af- nence on the world scene.1 The publica- finities between that work and The tion of The Wages Question (1876) by Wages Question. Both works offered Francis Amasa Walker (born 1840) en- significant criticisms of the classical sured his acceptance as a founding mem- theory of distribution, especially the ber of the community of academic wage-fund doctrine, helping to pave the that was to burgeon in En- way for the subsequent marginal pro- glish-speaking circles in the 1880s and ductivity theory. Both accepted laisser- 1890s. In the , his aca- faire in a competitive regime as produc- demic doyenship was reflected in service ing a socially desirable outcome once as first president of the American Eco- two preconditions were met. The first nomic Association, 1886-92. Meanwhile, precondition, on which both authors the publication in 1879 of Progress and were broadly agreed, was that the state Poverty by the self-taught Henry George should limit and exercise (born 1839) soon ignited in the United control over or dominant States and other countries unprece- firms, even placing natural monopolies dented outpourings of both enthusiasm under public . The goal of the and outrage at its radical claim that natu- other precondition was also shared. ral resources were rightly the of This was to alleviate the chronic pov- all, and its radical proposal that a confis- erty and immiseration of a substantial catory "single " on pure rent should segment of the working classes. It was replace all existing and tariffs. on the root cause of this problem that the two differed. For George it was the 1 Among home-spun Americans the name of private ownership of natural resources, Henry Carey (1796-1877) perhaps deserves men- while for Walker it was the positive de- tion but he was rarely taken seriously abroad. For a general view of pre-1870 American economics pendence of labor efficiency on real see Joseph Dorfman (1946, 1949). wages. This meant that any sustained 1891

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1892 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXV (December 1997)

reduction in wages could prove self jus- precludes detailed treatment of any one tifying-an efficiency-wage possibility topic. No more is intended than a selec- George acknowledged but deemed of tive and individual perspective on two only secondary importance. These diag- individuals who deserve to be remem- nostic differences led, of course, to bered even a century after their deaths radical differences in prescription and for the significant part they played in to Walker's vehement denunciation of the development of economic thought. George's taxation proposals, a vehe- George, indeed, still has discernable in- mence no doubt strengthened by scorn fluence in some quarters, but Walker's for the effrontery of a rank outsider in mark on current economic thought is no addressing basic issues of Walker's own longer identifiable. discipline. What especially provoked Walker was George's proposal that I. Contrasting Lives owners of natural resources be in ef- fect expropriated without compensation. Francis Walker's father, Amasa Walker's harsh reaction to this idea, and Walker (1799-1875), had risen from to the normative claims underlying it, lowly beginnings to become a successful colored his whole attitude to George. businessman, retiring at age 41 to pur- This prevented him from doing justice sue politics and the study and teaching to George's abilities as an economic of economics. With his son's assistance reasoner or recognizing similarities in he published a successful treatise, The their positive views. However, a meet- Science of Wealth (1866). Francis was ing of minds was hardly encouraged by educated at Amherst, where his father the antagonistic attitude toward the aca- taught econQmics, and was already pub- demic economists of the day that lishing magazine articles on economic George entertained from the outset. issues by age 17. The outbreak of civil Few later economists have led lives war terminated a budding legal career. as remarkable as those of our two Francis enlisted in the Union forces, authors, and the remaining discussion serving with the Army of the Potomac begins with brief biographical sketches in staff roles, and was wounded, then (Section I). After that the issues raised captured. Returning to civil life with in the preceding paragraph are ad- the rank of Brigadier General he there- dressed in sections which deal with: after was often referred to as "General contributions to distribution theory Walker" and always retained a strong (Section II), the problem of poverty in the commemoration and his- (Sections III and IV), and the "single tory of the units in which he served. Af- tax" (Section V). Further sections deal ter first turning to schoolteaching and more briefly with our authors' thoughts then journalism, meanwhile assisting his on the (Section VI) and father, he was tapped in 1869 by the on and statistics (Section VII, then Commissioner of Revenue, econo- where Walker is the main exponent). mist (1828-98), to The antagonism between George and take charge of the Bureau of Statistics the academic economists is considered in the U.S. Treasury. Walker's success next (Section VIII) and a summation there led to his appointment as superin- and assessment (Section IX) rounds out tendent of the U.S. census of 1870. In the paper. The appendix provides a 1871 he took on the Commissionership brief survey of the pertinent literature. for Indian Affairs, meanwhile retaining The extended range of the discussion his census duties, and in 1873 he began

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Whitaker: George and Walker 1893 to teach and history Unlike Walker, who was comfortably at Yale's Sheffield Scientific School. established from the start and ever He remained there until 1881, when fortunate in his smoothly unfolding he became president of the Massachu- career, George's life was a tale of setts Institute of Technology (MIT), a incessant struggle and false starts. He position he retained for the rest of his was born in of lower mid- life. dle class parents, supportive but unable The years at Yale were his most pro- to provide their first-born son with en- ductive from a scholarly viewpoint, giv- tree to a secure occupation. Henry was ing rise to his most significant books, intelligent but undisciplined. He aban- The Wages Question and Money in its doned school at age 13 and soon heard Relation to Trade and Industry (Walker the call of the sea, sailing at age 15 as 1876, 1879).2 But he nevertheless foremast boy on a voyage to maintained strong links to government and India. Apprenticeship as a printer service, in particular serving as superin- came next and, though immediately un- tendent of the U.S. census of 1880. successful, gave him a skill that was to When Walker took over the presidency prove critical in his California years. of MIT it was a small, struggling institu- The lure of the West Coast drew him to tion. It prospered under his leadership, embark as steward on a voyage around although remaining extremely small by Cape Horn to San Francisco. He ar- today's standards, and Walker found rived in California in 1858 at age 19 there the time and energy to teach eco- with few connections and no settled nomics as well as to author a copious plans. He was to remain there until flow of publications. These spanned 1881, living hand to mouth, frequently economics, statistics, and an impressive in debt, his difficulties increased by an variety of other topics, educational, improvident but successful early mar- military, and civic. He died suddenly at riage and by a propensity to make ill- age 56 in the full tide of activity and timed in mining shares. He renown. turned his hand to many things, from a A man of enormous energy and prac- hapless retailing venture in British Co- tical ability, Walker's public distinction lumbia, where gold was rumored, to rested more on his wide range of itinerant agricultural labor, to hawking achievement than upon outstanding in- clothes-wringing machines, but the tellectual creativity. His turn of mind mainstay was newspaper printing in the was inductive rather than analytic-he everchanging fringe of underfinanced confessed to "great weakness in the short lived jour-nals and papers marking matter of abstract reasoning" (Dorfman the California scene. About 1865 he be- 1949, p. 109). His literary style was gan to turn his hand to occasional freel- breezy and blunt, with a penchant for ance writing and editorializing, and also drollery. to be involved in politics on the anti- railroad Democratic side. By 1871 he 2 Of Walker's other economic works, Political was beginning to be recognized as a sig- Economy ([1883] 1887) was an influential college nificant public figure, and later as a text, summarizing many of his writings, while (1889) was a simplified primer. Monetary issues powerful public speaker. But he were treated in (1878, 1896) and the general issue achieved little economic security, even of rent, including the attack on George, in after becoming managing editor and (1883b). Davis R. Dewey ( Walker 1899) collected many of Walker's occasional writings on economics part-owner of a precarious reformist and statistics. newspaper in the early 1870s. Appoint-

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1894 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXV (December 1997)

ment in 1875 as State Inspector of Gas At Oxford in March 1884 he came face Meters by an admiring Democratic gov- to face with Alfred Marshall in an un- ernor, while less lucrative than ex- ruly debate (see Section VIII). pected, provided the opportunity for By 1885 George was a world-re- the sustained study and writing involved nowned figure, drawing large and en- in the preparation of Progress and Pov- thusiastic audiences as well as much erty which had already been foreshad- hostile criticism. He had offered in Pro- owed in a lengthy pamphlet (George gress and Poverty both diagnosis of cur- 1871). rent social ills and prescriptions for Several publishing houses rejected their cure. His hopeful vision of a more as unlikely to be a prosperous, harmonious, and equitable commercial success and George, aided society appealed to those with tender by friends, had to prepare the plates at social consciences or radical leanings, his own expense, even setting a small while the hard headed and comfortably amount of the type himself. A private situated-already alarmed by an omi- edition in 1879 was followed by a com- nous upwelling of labor unrest and so- mercial edition published after some re- cial agitation-viewed his populist pro- luctance in January 1880 by Appleton posals as a distinct threat to social order and Company. Within a year the book's and stability. public success was unmistakable, aided George worked indefatigably to pro- by strong reviews and violent contro- mote the ideas of Progress and Poverty versy at home and abroad. By late 1881 and build a following at home and George believed that the circulation abroad. His abilities and success as a had risen to between 75,000 and propagandist were remarkable, yet he 100,000 and by 1885 it had "broken all was by nature more social critic and vi- records as the most widely distributed sionary than political activist. His un- and read book in economic literature" compromising insistence that his spe- (Charles A. Barker 1955, p. 417). cific program offered the only Despite the large sales of this and his satisfactory solution to social problems later books, George's income remained limited the scope for alliance with other precarious, as wide circulation was radical and reformist groups. Neverthe- more important to him than royalties. less, he was persuaded in 1886 by a co- The public lecture circuit was to prove alition of labor organizations to cam- lucrative, but he was never to be more paign for the office of mayor of New than comfortably off. In 1881, his ap- York, receiving an impressive share of pointment as inspector of gas meters the vote in a three-way contest. But a terminated by a new administration, he split soon developed with the socialists, returned permanently to the east, set- who found unacceptable George's faith tling in New York. in freely competitive private enterprise. An extended trip to Britain and Ire- He turned from large-scale political am- (1881-82) as correspondent for bition to fostering a network of single- Irish World, a radical American publi- tax organizations, focused primarily on cation for expatriate Irish, took George issues of local taxation. A loyal and de- to the heart of the Irish land contro- voted single-tax following soon girdled versy at its most acute stage, acquaint- the English-speaking world. It was to ing him with many of the key figures. survive well beyond his death and is not Highly successful, if controversial, lec- yet extinct. But by the 1890s the land ture trips to Britain (1884-85) followed. issue was being relegated rapidly from

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Whitaker: George and Walker 1895

the center of reformist political activity ward the successor marginal produc- and debate. tivity theory, a movement that was to In the 18 years remaining to him af- culminate only in the 1890s. Walker's ter the initial publication of Progress role in this transition has been widely and Poverty, books, pamphlets, and recognized, but George's has received newspaper articles, flowed steadily from less credit than it deserves.3 George's pen, but none shook the world The precise character of the often as Progress and Poverty had done. vague wages fund doctrine is open to Among these writings two books were considerable doubt but there seem to primarily devoted to economic discus- be four essential elements: it is macro- sion: Protection or (George economic, it is specified in real terms, it 1886) amplified the free-trade advocacy presumes significant gestation lags in of Progress and Poverty, while the in- production, and it takes for granted that complete and posthumously published workers' consumption must come from The Science of Political Economy a previously produced stock of wage (George 1897) essayed a wholesale re- , not from the products on which construction of the discipline. Despite a workers are currently engaged. Thus, genuine talent for economic analysis society must maintain in its a George's real bent was ethico-philo- stock of completed wage goods large sophical and his turn of mind more enough to support workers' consump- speculative than analytical. His wide ex- tion while the fruits of current produc- perience and extensive reading provided tive activity are awaited.4 him with a large store of anecdotes, Walker (1875; 1876, pp. 128-51) which he used with telling effect, but challenged this wages-fund doctrine he used specific facts more illustratively and was widely regarded as refuting it than inductively. His literary style, al- decisively. Yet his criticisms did not add though perhaps florid and oratorical to up to a coherent critique. While recog- modern taste, nevertheless retains a nizing that consumption of seasonally memorable sweep, power, and passion. produced goods might need to come Death came in October 1897 while from previously accumulated stocks, he George, at age 58, was in the throes of a argued that such stocks could be main- quixotic second candidacy for the may- tained by the workers themselves, and oralty of New York. He received a that even if maintained and doled out hero's funeral, his selfless dedication to by their employers this might be an ar- social improvement and human better- ment lauded on all sides. 3 An excellent account of the demise of the wages fund and the slow emergence of marginal productivity theory is Scott Gordon (1973) which, II. The Wages Fund and the Theory of however, pays little attention to George's contri- Income Distribution bution. 4 See, for example, ([1776] 1976, pp. 83, 276-83); ([1848] 1965, pp. The wages fund theory had domi- 55, 63-64). Frank W. Taussig (1896) provides a nated the English language literature full account of this phase of classical thought. during the classical era but had largely Mill's 1869 "recantation," so called, did little more than make minor concessions as to the rigidity of lost allegiance by 1875, although a satis- the wages fund (see Mill 1869). The classical factory alternative had yet to suggest it- position is most easily justified for a temperate- self. Walker and George were to be in- agriculture case in which all production processes are annual and must start at the same time of strumental in its final discrediting and year hardly a realistic aggregative characteriza- in the initiation of the movement to- tion by the 1870s, if ever.

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rangement quite distinct from wage de- "there should be, somewhere within the termination. Wages, he held, would be circle of exchange, a contemporaneous based on the of the product ex- production of sufficient subsistence for pected to result from the worker's cur- the laborers, and a willingness to ex- rent activity, which value "furnishes the change this subsistence for the thing on measure of wages" (1876, p. 137). The which the labor is being bestowed" actual payment of the wages might even (George 1929, p. 74). In stationary gen- be delayed until after the employer had eral equilibrium goods having a gesta- secured the product, thus being paid in tion lag before reaching usable form arrears rather than being "advanced" as must be started at a uniform rate in the classical theory envisaged. time, thus becoming available for use at Such arguments might be defensible a uniform rate of flow, and the alloca- for money wages, but for real wages tion of resources between activities (equal to real consumption on the then must be such that the output flows of common implication of no by finished goods, both producer and con- workers) they evade the question of the sumer goods, just satisfy the demands source of the bulk of the goods workers for them. The result is that "the subsis- are consuming at any time. If not from tence of the laborers engaged in pro- pre-existing stocks of consumer goods duction which does not directly yield then from where? Walker evidently be- subsistence comes from the production lieved that the source could be current of subsistence in which others are si- production, the acid test for him being multaneously engaged" (p. 76). Some the effect of an overnight increase in la- activities produce more than enough to bor productivity. Increase in real wages maintain their own workforce, while would, he maintained, not have to await others produce less. This decisively the accumulation of extra capital in- clarifies equilibrium possibilities but duced by higher profits as the classical there remain intricate disequilibrium is- argument held but would be obtained sues into which George hardly enters. immediately from the enlarged output The case of seasonally produced goods (1876, pp. 144-47, 411). But the fact is also ignored. As Walker had recog- that some workers produce intermedi- nized, between harvests consumption of ate or goods, not consump- these must come from stocks. It is in- tion goods, left unresolved the problem teresting to note that George's argu- of balancing demand and supply. ment is very similar to that sub- It remained for George to clarify how sequently advanced by Marshall (1888) macroeconomic balance might be pre- when he completed his own struggle to served if real wages and workers' con- free himself from all wages fund pre- sumption are both derived from current conceptions, failing, however, to ac- output rather than prior stocks. In equi- knowledge George's efforts.5 In retro- librium, if a worker is paid the equiva- spect the prolonged hold of the classical lent of his immediate value added as it is created the employer will not lose, 5A. Marshall and Mary P. Marshall (1879), al- obtaining objects of equivalently in- though contributing to the emerging marginal- productivity theory, still retained traces of wages- creased value which he can retain or fund preconceptions: see John K. Whitaker sell at his discretion. Employers cede to (1974); Mark Donoghue (1995). The inventories labor claims to value but obtain from la- envisaged in Marshall (1888) were only to meet unexpected demand changes, not to cover the bor equivalent added value. Macro- whole of demand over a production gestation pe- economic equilibrium requires that riod.

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stock oriented perspective seems in- which give an advantage to the element comprehensible. Yet the difficulty of es- of time" (1929, p. 196) help determine caping it helps explain why develop- the and there is also a hint ment of the marginal productivity of substitution between direct labor and theory lagged the onset of capital-embodied labor: "if wages fall, by some 20 years. interest must also fall in proportion, Walker and George had each adopted else it becomes more profitable to turn the view that real wages come from out- labor into capital than to apply it di- put, not capital, and so were in a posi- rectly" (1929, p. 199). The consequence tion to make early faltering steps to- is, as George sees it, that the relative ward the marginal productivity theory shares in output of wages and interest that was to emerge in the late 1880s remain in fixed ratio. In contrast to Karl and early 1890s. Walker's early effort at Marx, George sees neither injustice in a revised theory of distribution was of- interest nor inherent conflict between fered in his 1883 textbook and, perhaps labor and (non-monopolized) capital. because of its flaws, helped spur contro- Both share in a common interest against versy and new thinking.6 George's ef- the landlord.8 In truth, capital per se forts were largely ignored, perhaps was peripheral to George's vision be- justly given his confusing treatment of cause, as he explained, capital.7 we have reached the same point as would Both authors accepted fully the Ri- have been attained had we simply treated cardian theory of competitive rent, fo- capital as a form of labor, and sought the law cusing primarily upon the extensive which divides the produce between rent and margin-perhaps a reflection of their wages: that is to say, between the possessors common failure to conceptualize a pro- of the two factors, natural substances and powers, and human exertion-which two fac- duction function and the associated tors by their union produce all wealth. (1929, idea of factor substitution. p. 203) For George, the fundamental distinc- tion is between the physical environ- This simplifying hint will be adopted in ment and human effort, the rent con- the subsequent discussion of George's cept being generalized to include views, reducing his distribution theory to returns to all scarce aspects of the for- an essentially Ricardian one (see Section mer and purified to exclude any portion III). due to the latter. Human effort is ap- Walker divides income more com- plied either directly, thus yielding plexly into rent, interest, profits, and wages, or in stored-up form, thus yield- wages. Rent is determined in the Ri- ing interest. George's theory of interest cardian manner, while the interest rate is suggestive but frustratingly sketchy is determined in an unexplained way by and elusive. The "vital forces of nature the interaction of supply and demand for real capital. Walker's pride and joy was his treat- 6 His argument is essentially unchanged in the third edition (Walker 1887) to which reference ment of profit, which deviated sharply will be made. Bernard Newton (1968, pp. 39-97), from the British tradition of the capital- provides a detailed account of Walker's distri- bution theory. 8 Industrial monopolists like landlords are seen 7 For George's treatment of distribution see as exercising an unjust privilege but this is as mo- George (1929, pp. 153-224). His stress on the pro- nopolist not capitalist. Landlord and monopolist ductivity of time is vaguely reminiscent of the pio- tend to be con founded by George's terming pri- neering treatment in William Stanley Jevons vate ownership of land a "land " (1929, (1871), but almost certainly independent of it. p. 288 for example).

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ist employer whose profits combine in- fying assumption that the opportunity terest on his capital with wages for his cost of entrepreneurship is independent supervisory efforts. The capitalist now of the level of wages. Otherwise an in- becomes a mere rentier and the figure crease in wages would lower the supply of the entrepreneur, often working on of active entrepreneurs, introducing in- borrowed capital, takes center stage as terdependence between wages and the initiator and coordinator of eco- profits. Non-pecuniary advantages to nomic activity who receives profits that entrepreneurship will not eliminate this are exclusive of interest. The views, and complication. They might make the perhaps the entrepreneurial experience, monetary of en- of Amasa Walker apparently helped trepreneurship for an individual zero at shape this aspect of his son's thought. some particular level of wages, but will Entrepreneurial ability being a scarce not maintain it at zero as wages vary. and non-uniform natural talent, some It is hardly necessary to dwell on the entrepreneurs will be more skillful than limitations of George's and Walker's at- others. The least skillful among the ac- tempts to establish a distribution theory tive entrepreneurs will obtain profits no that would replace the defunct classical greater than the wages they could have one. Neither author was able to assem- earned in paid employment. A more ble an integrated, mutually consistent, skillful entrepreneur will earn profits in and exhaustive account of the ways in excess of this opportunity cost, the ex- which various claims on total product cess constituting a rent equal to the ad- were reconciled and settled. This phase ditional value of output arising because of their thought was soon to be super- the individual works as entrepreneur seded. rather than as employee. Paying this rent to him as an excess of profit in- III. The Problem of Poverty: George come over his opportunity cost harms no one else and is therefore just. George's analysis (1929, pp. 230-60) Walker simplifies matters "for pur- of how secular progress may increase poses of scientific reasoning" (1887, p. poverty may be couched in terms of a 239) by setting entrepreneurial oppor- macroeconomic production function re- tunity cost at zero. This produces an ex- lating aggregate output to the total in- act parallel between profits and land put of labor, land (which will be taken rent, zero-profit entrepreneurs corre- to include all other natural resources) sponding to no-rent land. Subtracting being in fixed supply. He built, of from the total output the sums of all course, upon Ricardian rent theory to positive profits and rents leaves the which he was heavily indebted. But he amount available for interest and wages. extended it in important ways. David The total payment of interest being al- Ricardo had focused on the use of land ready settled, Walker treats labor as the in agriculture, essentially ignoring the residual claimant, arguing rather im- land devoted to manufacturing and ur- plausibly that any unexpected increase ban activities. George adopts a more ag- in output must accrue to wages because gregative viewpoint, encompassing all other income payments are predeter- kinds of output and activity. Moreover mined. he introduces economies of both ag- It should be noted that even in full glomeration and scale resulting from equilibrium the residual-claimant status population growth. A growing popula- of wages is dependent upon the simpli- tion may thus result in increased output

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Whitaker: George and Walker 1899 per head despite increased pressure on (iii) It leads to increased agglomeration land and natural resources. Yet, because of population and industry, greatly real wages are determined at the exten- raising the productive advantage of sive margin, where increased popula- the selected pieces of land which tion pressure on fixed natural resources are the sites of such agglomeration manifests itself, those owning only their by "bringing out in land special ca- own labor may be harmed by population pabilities otherwise latent, and by growth, even though output per head attaching special capabilities to may be increasing overall. America with particular lands" (p. 243).9 Pecuni- its vast natural resources, and especially ary benefit accrues to the owners the American West, may seem an odd of such land and not to the workers place for a preoccupation with the con- employed on it (p. 235). sequences of limited natural resources to be incubated, but it must be empha- The last two effects are social or exter- sized that the postulated diminishing nality effects not observed in the private returns to labor may be due as much to decisions of individual economic actors. increased spatial dispersion of eco- The competitive wage for labor is simply nomic activity and its attendant extra the extra product coming from the first costs as to increased pressure on al- effect-the average product of labor at ready utilized natural resources. Peculi- the no-rent margin-the addition of any arities of the California scene-pro- one worker exerting only a negligible longed depression in the 1870s, and the and uncompensated influence through insatiable conversion of large land the last two effects. The addition of tracts to private ownership, not least these makes it at least possible for out- the massive land grants to railroads- put per head to rise while population may have helped darken George's grows and the real wage rate falls. views, however. George sought to counter Malthusian It will be well to follow George in claims that population growth engen- taking up first the effects of exogenous ders poverty through increased diffi- population growth, with no "improve- culty of production and placed the ment in the arts" (in which term he in- blame for poverty on defective human cludes the arts of both production and institutions, not nature's niggardliness. social organization). For it is here that A significant portion of Progress and his most striking analytical contribu- Poverty was devoted to countering tions arise (1929, pp. 230-43). Malthusian views (1929, pp. 91-150). Population growth has three distinct George denied analogy between human effects. and other species, arguing that the hu- man monopoly of rational thought could (i) It increases the demand for land, harness the biological fecundity of requiring its more extensive and other species to human ends, sheer intensive utilization, thus running space limitation being the only inescap- into . able constraint on mankind, but one (ii) It increases the efficiency of labor still inconceivably far off. He was by permitting more specialization 9 George illustrates this with his remarkable ac- and a more complex division of la- count of the development of a prairie tract from bor, thus increasing the output of first settler to thriving urban community (1929, pp. 235-42). Urban land now yielding astronomi- any worker on each piece of land cal rent may have been inferior land at an earlier (p. 232). stage of development (p. 242).

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enough of a Malthusian to recognize will be a decrease in w if the onset of that real wages cannot be held perma- diminishing returns is sufficiently severe. nently below a conventional subsistence As population grows, output per head is level, itself moldable by circumstances, given by habits, and conventions, but for the Q/N = A(N)[B(N)/N + F(N)/N] (3) most part he treated population growth which can increase, despite a possible as exogenous and not in itself a cause fall in F(N)/N due to increased pressure for anxiety. It would tend to raise the on land, especially if agglomeration relative price of unprocessed natural economies are increasing rapidly. La- products, but reduced processing and bor's relative share in output is manufacturing costs could still allow real income per head to rise. Wide- wN/Q = F'(N)/[B(N)/N + F(N)/N]. (4) spread consumption of services and pro- Ignoring agglomeration effects momen- cessed or manufactured goods justified tarily by setting B(N) 0 O, it is clear that expressing real incomes in terms of out- labor's share may rise or fall as N in- put as a whole and not just raw products. creases, being constant when the elastic- A formalization of George's argument ity NF'/F is constant, as with a log-linear may assist here. His production func- form of F. Because the wage share could tion may be approximated (with primes rise, there is thus a slight exaggeration in denoting derivatives) as George's remark that

increase of population, as it operates to ex- Q =A(N)[B(N) + F(L)]; tend production to lower natural levels, oper- A,B,F,A',B',F' > 0 > F" (1) ates to increase rent and reduce wages as a proportion, and may or may not reduce wages where Q is output while both L and N as a quantity; while it seldom can, and prob- represent the labor force (proportional ably never does, reduce the aggregate pro- to population and assumed homoge- duction of wealth as compared with the ag- nous). At the aggregate level L _ N, but gregate expenditure of labor, but on the contrary increases, and frequently largely in- any individual sees the return to extra la- creases it. (1929, p. 234) bor as the effect of an increase in L with N constant. F(L) represents the Ri- Recognizing the agglomeration effect in cardian diminishing-return effect, A(N) (4) lowers labor's relative share and pos- the increased-specialization effect, and sibly makes it more adversely affected by B(N) the increased-agglomeration ef- population increase. However, this re- fect.10 The competitive real wage rate, flects extra to land- w, is given by aQ/lL, hence, setting owners rather than added disadvantage L= N, to labor. Unless relative deprivation is an w = A(N)F'(N). (2) issue, the problem of poverty depends As George recognizes (1929, p. 233) w upon the absolute and not the relative income that a worker receives. may increase or decrease as N increases The next phase of George's argument because A rises but F' falls, but there (1929, pp. 244-54) is to analyze the ef- 10The form of (1) can be justified if it is as- fects of "improvement in the arts" with sumed to apply only to N > No, where No is a population constant. Here he makes the fixed number such that all agglomeration effects are restricted to the land employing the No work- very restrictive and quite unjustifiable ers operating in the most productive conditions. assumption that such improvement al- Then A(N)B(N) is the output of these No workers, ways operates in a labor augmenting while A(N)F(N) is the output of the remaining N - No workers. manner: "the effect of inventions and

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improvements in the productive arts is blessing to the landless. Thus, "poverty to save labor-that is, to enable the deepens as wealth increases, and wages same result to be secured with less la- are forced down while productive bor" (1929, p. 244). By thus equating its power grows, because land, which is the productive effects to those of a greater source of all wealth and the field of all labor force, George automatically ex- labor, is monopolized": "in spite of the cludes the possibility that technical increase of productive power, wages progress could alleviate the trouble- constantly tend to a minimum which some land constraint. Instead, it in- will give but a bare living" (1929, pp. creases the pressure on natural re- 328, 282). sources in the same way as would These dire beliefs were reinforced by population growth. a third element that George introduced The aggregate production function into his secular analysis: land specula- (1) can now be written in the simpler tion. Steadily rising rents and land form values encourage the speculative Q = G(L.E);G'> 0 > G" (5) holding of land for capital gain, and George believed that such land is typi- where E is the state of the arts, indicat- cally withheld from productive use. ing the number of standard efficiency Hence, the supply of land available for units of labor that an individual worker production is kept below what it would can offer, and L is the fixed labor force. have been in the absence of specula- The competitive real wage rate is again tion, exacerbating the effect of dimin- given by aJQ/lJL, and is now ishing returns. At one point (1929, p. w=EG'(L.E). (6) 441-42) he even implies that specula- As time passes E increases and each tion is the sole cause of falling real worker can offer more efficiency units, wages. This aspect of his thought is con- but the real return per efficiency unit sidered further in the light of Walker's falls because of diminishing returns due criticisms, but it might be noted here to fixed land. Total output and rent will that for to cause wages to certainly increase but, depending upon fall persistently, rather than simply be the speed at which G' declines, workers lower, its scale would need to keep in- may experience a decline rather than an creasing. increase in their real wage (see 1929, pp. 250-51). However, if leisure were in- IV. The Problem of Poverty: Walker creased so as to keep L.E constant, out- put, rent and real wage per year would Walker, who had already developed be unaffected (1929, p. 252), a point his own views on the causes of chronic whose implications for labor organization poverty, reacted with considerable hos- George did not pursue. tility to George's diagnosis (1883a; Despite the ambivalent implications 1883b, pp. 141-82).11 His animus was of his analysis and his avowal (1929, p. provoked particularly by outrage at 216) that the relative share of wages in George's policy recommendations, but output was his primary concern, George Walker's criticism of the analysis itself often slipped into assuming the worst: was far from temperate or just. He ac- that progress with or without popula- tion growth would oppress labor, not 1"Largely repeated in Walker (1887, pp. 417- 33). Newton ( 1968, p. 53n.) indicates that Walker just relatively to landowners but abso- had not studied Progress and Poverty until 1882 at lutely, becoming a curse rather than a least.

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cused George of "gross incapacity for mately to realize as its capital price!" economical thinking" (1883b, p. 6) and (1883b, p. 166). denied him any credit for his criticisms He did concede that "speculative of Malthus or the wages fund theory. treatment of building lots does cause a However, he did make two substantive certain amount of city to be criticisms of some significance: he held out of use" (1883b, p. 166). The found implausible George's assumption reason for this is presumably that tem- that technical progress was always labor porary use of an urban plot would often saving, suggesting that it was often land require a sunk investment, which could saving; and he questioned whether land only be justified by the security of a held for speculation would be with- long tenure. But such costs are not lim- drawn from productive use. On the first ited to urban use. What neither author issue George can hardly be defended, recognized is that in a non-stationary although Walker's counterexamples economy the existence of such costs of were somewhat hazy. In particular, his site development might make it socially extended invocation (1883b, pp. 177- optimal to hold sites of all kinds vacant 81) of Mill's partial-equilibrium treat- for future development.'2 ment of the effect of agricultural im- Walker was deeply skeptical of provements on rent when output is George's belief that the increasing toll constant (Mill 1965, pp. 723-29) was taken by rent was a substantial cause of hardly germane given the macro- the impoverishment of the lowest economic character of George's argu- classes of workers, especially urban ment. ones. His skepticism derived partly George had recognized (1929, pp. from the statistical record on rent's 256-58) that in Britain agricultural land share of national income, which hardly would usually be rented out rather than bore out George's fears, and partly from kept idle, but claimed that Americans a conviction that technical progress al- were averse to renting and would in- lied with modest population restraint, stead move to distant areas where land would steadily raise living standards for was cheap and where they would ac- the majority of workers. He had already quire more than they could presently developed in The Wages Question use in the hope of future resale at a (1876, pp. 81-88) his own explanation high price. This process would cause ex- for the "degradation" of the lower treme dispersion of development and classes. The key, as he saw it, was the keep much prime land out of use. endogeneity of labor efficiency. This al- Walker suggested, with some justice, lowed an arbitrary reduction in real that George's views had been unduly in- wages to be self justifying as it would fluenced by the exceptional situation in lower the efficiency of the affected California (1883b, pp. 163-64). In workers, partly through physical depri- longer settled areas, he suggested, the vation and partly through demoraliza- carrying cost of idle land, especially if tion, to the point where "the laborer mortgaged, would be a strong incentive to lease it: "How unreasonable . . . to 12 Non-renewable natural resources were ig- nored by George, apart from gold-mining anec- assume that men owning good produc- dotes, but withholding such resources for future tive land will refuse to allow it to be use might well be socially optimum. His argument cultivated now, simply because they (1929, pp. 248-49) that workers are harmed by preservation of land for the enjoyment of the rich cannot get for it a rent which corre- clearly involves equity considerations, not effi- sponds to what they look forward ulti- ciency ones.

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earns what he gets now no better than making what is, in effect, an investment he formerly did his larger wages" (1876, in the worker's productivity. "There is p. 84). Profits are no higher and pro- no law yet which gives an employer duction costs no lower so that the de- compensation for 'unexhausted im- mand for labor does not increase. Short provements' in the person of his la- of migration, the only hope of restoring borer" (1876, p. 60).13 Similar argu- the initial situation is for the workers to ments might justify legal restrictions on adhere staunchly to their old "standard the length of workday. of comfort" or conventional subsistence Walker's remedy for the problem level, refusing to propagate until the re- of labor degradation was to improve duction in labor supply restores the old each worker's effectiveness as an eco- wage level, a process both slow and im- nomic agent. For "it is only as competi- probable, indeed virtually inconsistent tion is perfect that the wages class have with the assumed degeneration of pro- any security that they will receive the ductive efficiency and with what it im- highest remuneration which the existing plies for the degradation of the worker's conditions of industry will permit" outlook, ambition, and character. From (1876, p. 363). Self respect, sobriety, this perspective real wages are in a kind education, knowledge of industrial con- of neutral equilibrium, ever prone to a ditions, freedom from premature family vicious spiral downward given labor's responsibilities, and modest financial bargaining disadvantage and vulnerabil- reserves, would all conduce to this end ity to business depressions. (1876, pp. 345-56, 414). Interferences This argument relies on a reduction in labor markets by governments or la- in wages leaving production costs un- bor combinations were not to be con- changed. What is perhaps more plausi- demned a priori but judged by their ble, as Walker recognizes (1876, p. 55), tendency to promote self reliance is that at very low wage rates an in- (1876, pp. 157-73, 337-41, 356-59, crease in wages may raise productivity 385-92). sufficiently to lower production costs, Degradation of labor is the dark side while at high rates production costs may of the coin of endogenous labor effi- rise with wage rates even though pro- ciency, but the bright side is the con- ductivity increases somewhat. The neu- cept of "the economy of high wages" tral zone of wages lies between these which, meeting the ameliorist concerns two zones and may be quite narrow. To of the age, was to be popularized fol- the question of why employers in the lowing Walker's pioneering statement. first zone do not raise wages voluntar- George was by no means opposed to the ily, Walker has two answers (1876, pp. idea. In his words "The efficiency of la- 58-60). As the treatment of slaves and bor always increases with the habitual domestic animals by their owners fre- wages of labor-for high wages mean quently demonstrates, decisions of this increased self-respect, intelligence, sort are not always governed by pecuni- hope, and energy" (1929, p. 444). Mar- ary considerations. And, more signifi- cantly, if the productivity effects of 13 Walker also has interesting insights into the higher wages are not immediate (and consequences of firm-specific human capital some, being intergenerational, may be (1876, pp. 300-02). The extent to which the very slow) then the lack of the right to worker }enefits from this is tempered by "the master's knowledge that, though the workman may continued enjoyment of the laborer's take from him these advantages, he cannot carry services may inhibit the employer's them to any one else" (p. 302, stress in original).

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1904 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXV (December 1997) shall (1961, Vol. i, p. 510),14 crediting fraction of that part of their income the lead taken by "Walker and other (possibly an imputed income) attribut- American economists" in demonstrating able to pure rent. The remaining frac- "the fact that highly paid labour is gen- tion is to be retained by owners as an erally efficient and therefore not dear incentive to ensure the efficient utiliza- labour," hailed their finding as "more tion and development of the property. full of hope for the future of the human With this fraction small, land specula- race than any other that is known to tion and its attendant evils would be us. greatly attenuated. The incentive for an owner or tenant with long lease to im- V. The prove land by adding buildings, fences, drainage, etc., would not be discour- Although the term was developed aged, because the portion of rent or im- only later as a Georgist campaign slogan puted rent demonstrably due to such (see 1987b), the con- improvements would escape the single cept of the single tax-a land tax replac- tax. ing all other taxes and imposts-is Administration of the single tax clearly and fully developed in Progress would require tax authorities to isolate and Poverty (1929, pp. 299-429). the pure rent component attributable to George there found the roots of poverty any property in its highest-valued use, and rising income disparities in the pri- which might not be its current use vate ownership of natural resources (1929, pp. 437-38).15 George believed which are rightly the common inheri- that the necessary isolation of pure rent tance of all. For, following , from the return to land improvements George maintained that a legitimate would be feasible, except perhaps for claim to property can be established improvements such as drainage made only for the creations of human effort, long ago. He found an encouraging acquired directly or by exchange. Natu- precedent in the American practice of ral resources not being so created are distinguishing the values of the site and properly the collective property of soci- the improvements on it when taxing ety, providing the indispensable setting real estate. Conscious as he was of the for the deployment of all human effort. corrupting effects of taxation and pro- A to natural resources, even tectionism on politics, administration, though acquired in good faith, is no and private morals (1929, pp. 417-18 more legitimate than the title to a slave, for example) he should perhaps have both being flawed at their very origin. been more wary of a system which Outright expropriation by the state of would leave administrative authority to all privately held claims to natural re- determine what portion of actual or im- sources would thus seem justifiable, but puted rental income should be sub- George does not go quite so far. In- jected to a punitive tax. stead, he proposes to leave owners in Given George's belief that pure rent full possession, with complete freedom would absorb a growing share of a grow- to control the use and disposition of ing income per head, the revenue from their property, but to tax away a large the proposed tax promised to be large 14The statement dates from 1890. In 1892 Mar- shall added that Walker's finding was really more 15 Basing the tax on the highest valued use important than the refinement of input-demand would add a stick to encourage the switch to that theory by means of the marginal productivity con- use should the carrot of a small share of the addi- cept (1961, Vol. II, p. 553). tional income give inadequate incentive.

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and growing-so large that all other Of course, George's estimate of po- taxes, including protective and revenue tential yield from his single tax has tariffs, could be wholly eliminated, hardly been fulfilled, while the growth along with their attendant collection of government expenditure at all levels costs, still leaving a surplus which could has exceeded anything he might have be devoted to public amenities and fa- imagined. What remains significant in cilities, to paying down the public debt, his single tax proposal is that it has, as and to acquiring natural monopolies to he well understood, important effi- be run as public (1929, pp. ciency advantages. By concentrating 455-56). The single tax would make taxes entirely on a base supplied per- more land available for production by fectly inelastically to society it elimi- discouraging speculative withholding nates all dead-weight costs of taxation. and under-use, while improvements to However, its equity appeal is less evi- land would be encouraged by being no dent. The moral revulsion that had longer taxed. Economic activity would made possible the abolition of property also be enhanced by the elimination of in slaves without compensation was all tax disincentives and monopolistic or hardly transferable to ownership of protectionist restrictions, along with natural resources. Despite George's their attendant corruptions. For George best rhetorical efforts to paint land all these consequences were not so owners as parasites, unwittingly under- much luxuries permitted by the single mining and polarizing society, reaction tax as essential complements to it, to his views by the well-established was combining to establish a framework predictably hostile, although there were within which untrammeled cheers in more radical quarters. could foster justice and fully serve the Walker was apoplectic, denouncing social interest. The resulting social George's program as "mad and anarchi- state might be so improved that land- cal," "truly monstrous," "a precious holders would find their extra tax bur- piece of villainy," and "steeped in den compensated by the uplifting of the infamy" (1883b, pp. 6, 145; 1887, pp. society in which they lived. Interest- 418, 419). He even accused George of ingly, despite his passionate concern wishing to give every person on earth for the underprivileged, George was no the right "indiscriminately to enter and redistributionist. The single tax simply enjoy at will each and every lot and par- restored to the collectivity what was its cel of land upon the globe, and every by right, and he did not envisage direct building which may have been or may transfers to the poor. He disregarded hereafter be erected thereupon" the possibility that in the new regime (1883b, p. 141)-hardly a propitious the position of the workers, although start to a cool critical assessment. initially improved, might again begin Walker's choler was provoked by to deteriorate.16 His optimistic prog- George's proposal-a logical conse- nosis here stood in stark contrast to quence of his view of human rights- his dire prognosis for the existing re- that landlords not be compensated for gime. losses imposed on them by estab- lishment of the single tax. The vehe- 16 Populatgion rowth and labor-augmenting "im- mence of his reaction was strange given provement in the arts" would still increase the his grudging acceptance of Mill's long- pressure exerted by fixity of natural resources and could lead to falling real wages-see Section III standing proposal for taxation of the above. "" in land values as

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being justified in principle although im- on long-familiar themes, the extent to practicable (1883b, pp. 121-40). which they captured public attention Mill had been arguing since 1848 for and the vehemence of the public reac- the communal claim to natural re- tion to them may seem surprising. His sources because "No man made the call for expropriation now rather than in land. It is the original of the the distant future, and an upwelling of whole species" (Mill [1848] 1965, p. social tensions and concerns in the 230: see also pp. 227-32, 819-22 and 1880s, may help explain George's rise to Mill 1870). But Mill, unlike George, fame and notoriety. But the sheer spell proposed to leave landlords to enjoy cast on readers and auditors by his mes- their current positions and their current sianic vision of a transformed society land values, and to appropriate for the must also share some credit. public only such future increments in George was aware by 1879 of the af- those values as resulted from social de- finity of his single tax to the impot velopment rather than the landowners' unique' of the eighteenth century own actions. To the extent that future physiocrats, disclaiming any borrowing growth in demand for land was already from them, however (1929, pp. 423- anticipated in current land values, this 24). In truth, the parallel-which he meant that expropriation would be lim- emphasized increasingly in later writ- ited to any excess of future "unearned ings-was more of form than substance. increment" beyond the level already ex- George followed Ricardo in stressing pected. In Britain, the Land National- the limitation of nature's provision as ization Society, founded in 1881 and led the source of rent, while the physiocrats by , co-discoverer saw nature as providing a special bounty of the theory of natural selection, was to agriculture, a bounty which in the already going well beyond Mill in call- form of rent provided society's sole dis- ing for all ownership of land to lapse to posable surplus. the state after an interval without com- pensation (see Gaffney 1987c). VI. Thoughts on the Business Cycle Criticisms of in land, and proposals to restore a public claim America's prolonged of on land, were endemic in Europe 1873-78, precipitated by the panic of through much of the nineteenth cen- 1873, made both our authors keenly tury, with even earlier roots.17 Even in aware of the business cycle as a promi- America, still transferring land exten- nent feature of the post civil war Ameri- sively from public domain to private can economy and a cause of suffering to ownership, such alien ideas were hardly many. Each took up the topic in 1879. unknown. Given that George's land-re- Each, following Walter Bagehot, form proposals were largely variations stressed the propagation of distur- bances between industries. In George's 17 had asserted the public's words right to the land in his Social Statics (1851), but subsequently retracted. George (1892) teased this This stoppage of production at some points "perplexed philosopher" mercilessly~ for his volte must necessarily show itself at other points of face. In France Leon Walras was already an ardent the industrial network, in a cessation of de- proponent of land . Arguments for a mand, which would again check production social claim on land rent were a natural outgrowth of Ricardian theory and James Mill had already there, and thus the paralysis would communi- drawn this conclusion in 1821: see Donald Winch cate itself through all the interlacings of in- (1987). dustry and commerce. (1929, pp. 264-65)

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George provided a sketch of a systematic cycle by extinguishing land speculation. endogenous growth cycle. Walker fo- Walker (1883b, pp. 162-64) found cused rather on the factors deepening George's analysis of the business cycle and prolonging depression, offering only neither plausible nor proven. Indeed, fragmentary suggestions as to the initial the way in which George slips from source of dislocation and the origins of "may be" to "must be" in developing his ultimate recovery.18 argument makes it particularly vulner- George's cycle theory is essentially able to Walker's sarcasm that "A mono- very simple.'9 Sustained growth raises graph by Mr. George upon the signifi- land values without raising the real cance of the word 'therefore' is really wage rate, triggering land speculation a desideratum of systematic logic" which withdraws land from productive (1883b, p. 170). Walker's own theory of use, thereby lowering the equilibrium depression or "hard times" (1879, p. real wage rate. Workers, already hard 120) is essentially a fixed price one, pressed, will not accept such a reduc- with adjustments taking place entirely tion, preferring to withdraw their labor, through income effects. Depression is so that and depression initiated by an unexpected reduction in result. The depression ends when resis- the income of a group of producers, due tance to real-wage reductions fades, or to, say, unwise speculation or a natural when land speculation is squeezed out, disaster. These producers reduce their or perhaps when the equilibrium real consumption of other goods, lowering wage rate is increased by technological the incomes of the producers of these progress. The frequent suddenness of goods, and so on in widening circles. the onset of depression is accounted for Walker sharpens the analysis by invok- by the role of credit in masking increas- ing marginal propensities to spend out ing tensions until some shock precipi- of income that differ by good but not by tates a financial collapse. spender.21 This means that the brunt of George saw recurrent business cycles the output and demand reductions will as an important contributory cause of fall upon goods for which the common the immiseration of labor. They are "in- marginal propensity to spend is high. By tensifications of phenomena which al- implication, Walker assumes that each ways accompany material progress" and individual's marginal propensity to con- their result is a "gradual forcing of sume all goods combined is less than wages. . .toward their [subsistence] one, so that propagation of the initial minimum" (1929, pp. 6, 281).20 Fortu- impulse eventually leads to a low-level nately, the single tax, in addition to its equilibrium, not an implosion. The level other merits, would tame the business at which this equilibrium is established might be lowered by a contagion of pes- 18 See George (1929, pp. 263-81); Walker simism which causes producers to re- (1879, pp. 116-36; also 1887, pp. 171-86 where an spond to a demand reduction with a extended passage from A. Marshall and M. Mar- shall (1879) is used to describe the business cy- greater reduction of output, thus lower- cle). ing inventories. Walker believed that in 19 Because capital's role in the cycle exactly par- allels labor's it is again expositionally simpler to omit it. 21 Walker ranks goods in a hierarchy according 20 George fails to clarify why recurrent business to the degree to which their consumption is cut as cycles should lower real wages permanently and income falls. In the extreme case no lower-ranked cumulatively rather than just temporarily and re- good would be cut if scope remained for cutting a versibly. Walker's degradation argument (Section higher-ranked good, but Walker does not seem to IV above) would be a leading candidate. go quite so far.

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the low-level equilibrium aggregate pro- tent with the vital productive role he duction might have fallen to two-thirds ascribed to the entrepreneur working or even one-half of its initial level with borrowed capital. His support for (1879, pp. 132-33). However, the precise was encouraged by the ex- conditions defining and determining the pectation that it would provide a more equilibrium were left unexamined. rapidly expanding , as well There are evident parallels between as a more stable one, than would gold Walker's analysis of hard times and monometallism. Somewhat inconsis- ' later theory of tently, given his stern strictures on underemployment equilibrium (1936), George's confiscatory proposals, Walker parallels that lend some credibility to viewed with equanimity modest infla- the view of Walker as a significant pre- tion-induced redistribution from debtor cursor of Keynes (see Roger E. Back- to creditor or from rentier to entrepre- house 1987). Indeed, Walker's attention neur. Such redistribution was accept- to the way in which different industries able, if it resulted from an increased fare very differently in recession, be- supply of metal, being then cause marginal propensities to consume "not the work of man but of god," but their products differ, is more ambitious unacceptable if it was due to govern- if less precise than Keynes' aggregative ment manipulation of paper money analysis. George, too, what- which would carry "the sting of injus- ever the defects of his own attempt, tice and fraud" (Walker 1879, pp. 232- deserves credit for his pioneering 33). The distinction made here over- ambition to construct an internally con- looks the role that government may play sistent explanation for the regular oc- even with a metallic currency regime, currence of business cycles in a growing for example in choosing bimetallism economy. rather than monometallism, a point the western silver were keenly VII. Money and Statistics: Walker to aware of. the Fore One bimetallic country can hardly peg the gold price of silver against the Monetary issues were peripheral for entire world, while a group of bimetal- George, whose unfinished exposition of lic countries must coordinate their peg- monetary theory (1897, Book V) retains ging levels. Hence fixed-ratio bimetal- little interest. Walker, however, became lism is inherently international in an influential, if not especially original, nature. Abroad, especially in Britain expositor and advocate of bimetallism and France, Walker became the best and the quantity theory. He published known American exponent of interna- three books on monetary topics, Money tional bimetallism and took a prominent (1878), Money in its Relation to Trade part in international discussion and and Industry (1879), and International campaigning. At home, while skirting Bimetallism (1896), besides occasional entanglement in the heated rhetoric of writings (many reproduced in Walker the western silver interests, his views 1899, Vol. I, pp. 159-276). ran counter to the dominant gold A sound money man, wedded to a monometallism of his col- currency based on metal, Walker was leagues. Nevertheless his earlier books nevertheless a mild inflationist. A rising performed a valuable pedagogic func- would, he believed, encour- tion as college texts, while his strong age enterprise-a view entirely consis- but judicious support for bimetallism

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and the quantity theory helped maintain cian by far.22 Pique at being thus balance in American monetary debate. bested may have increased the stridency As a statistician, Walker was a collec- of Walker's subsequent attacks on tor and commonsense interpreter of George. data rather than a developer of statisti- cal tools. His supervision of the U.S. VIII. George and the Academic censuses of 1870 and 1880 helped im- Economists prove the quality and scope of those im- Progress and Poverty, besides offer- portant enquiries and he took a consid- ing diagnosis and prescription for soci- erable hand in the presentation and publication of the results. He was ety's ills, had attempted an entire re- construction of the subject of political quickly recognized as one of his coun- try's leading statisticians, serving as economy as George then conceived it.23 president of the American Statistical In preparing the book he had mastered the ideas of the classical economists, Association, 1883-97. In later years Walker's statistical in- but was hardly in touch with the newer currents of thought beginning to stir in terests were mainly demographic and the 1870s. Shortly after the book was he gained most attention for his "dis- placement" hypothesis that low-quality finished he told a friend: immigration depressed the domestic You will see, I think, that it is the most im- birth rate by providing low-wage com- portant contribution to the science of politi- petition and so lowered the quality of cal economy yet made; that, on their own ground, and with their own weapons, I have the population rather than increased its utterly broken down the whole structure of size. This finding-which Walker sup- the current political economy . . . The profes- ported more by statistical declamation sors will first ignore, then pooh-pooh, and than by statistical analysis-pointed to- then try to hold the shattered fragments of ward the restriction of immigration in their theories together; but this book opens the discussion along lines on which they can- order to protect "the American standard not make a successful defence. (Henry of living, and the quality of American George, Jr. 1900, pp. 322-23) citizenship from degradation through the tumultuous access of vast throngs of The reception from the professors- ignorant and brutalized peasantry from not least Walker-confirmed George's the countries of eastern and southern conviction that the envisaged recon- Europe" ( 1899, Vol. II, p. 438; see also struction of economics must be contin- pp. 417-51). ued single-handedly. His incomplete Faith in Walker as a statistician is and posthumously published The Sci- hardly increased by his dismal perfor- ence of Political Economy (1897) dem- mance in a newspaper dispute with 22 The entire exchange which was published in George in May-June 1883, their only di- Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, is repro- rect interaction. The issue was whether duced as an appendix (pp. 247-75) to George (1883). The New York Sun observed that Walker a report from the 1880 census had de- "squirms and sputters as one flagrant blunder af- scribed changes in farm size correctly. ter another is brought forward" (Henry George, Jr. Walker, the patronizing professional, 1900, p. 409). 23 As early as 1877 George had criticized the ex- airily dismissed George's charges at isting academic economics in an uncompromising first and, when backed to the wall, had address at the new University of California which no defense but bluster and ad hominem must have foreclosed any hope of his being of- fered a professorship there (Barker 1955, pp. 240- remarks. On this particular matter 43; Henry George, Jr. 1900, pp. 274-81; George George proved the more skillful statisti- 1904, Vol. 8, pp. 135-53 gives the text).

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1910 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXV (December 1997) onstrated the perils of such an under- atory and willing to do justice to taking, but Progress and Poverty, re- George's strong points a constructive garded as a work on economics, has debate might have ensued, at least on more merit than has usually been con- questions of distribution theory. ceded. After Walker there was for some If George in 1879 had been in com- years a resounding silence on the part mand of the old political economy, by of the American academic economists. 1897 he was uncomprehending of the George did not participate in the lively new academic discipline of economics running debate on distribution theory which had replaced it. This he came to in the pages of the Quarterly Journal of view as "a new and utterly incoherent Economics (founded 1886), and his political economy" exemplified in "the views received little notice there. It was incomprehensible works of Professor not until 1890, when the American So- Alfred Marshall" (George 1897, pp. cial Science Association devoted a ses- 203, 208). He pilloried this "pseudo-sci- sion to the single tax, that George came ence" as face to face with the economic estab- lishment, receiving a largely hostile re- admirably calculated to serve the purpose of ception, especially from the youthful those powerful interests dominant in the col- leges under our organization, that must fear a Edwin R. A. Seligman and to a degree simple and understandable political economy, from (see Barker and who vaguely wish to have the poor boys 1955, pp. 565-67; Steven B. Cord 1965, who are subjected to it by their professors pp. 29-33). By then George's analytical rendered incapable of thought on economic contributions to economics had been subjects. (George 1897, p. 208). largely superseded by later develop- Looking back near the end of his life, ments, leaving only his provocative pol- the self-styled author of "the most suc- icy proposals as the focus of contention. cessful economic work ever published" Also by then George's own position had charged that "while a few of these pro- hardened to the point at which rea- fessional economists, driven to say soned discussion was probably fruitless. something about 'Progress and Poverty', In Britain, Marshall's hostility had resorted to misrepresentation, the ma- given offense at the disorderly Oxford jority . . . refrained from meeting with meeting in 1884. His behavior there disproof or argument what it had laid was less than admirable. George's expo- down, and treated it with contemptuous sition had been weak and confused, but silence" (George 1897, pp. 203-04). Marshall harassed him about errors that The charge that the economists mis- a serious reading of Progress and Pov- represented or ignored George's ideas erty would have shown George had has an element of truth, although his clearly avoided. (See George J. Stigler own exaggerated pretensions and policy and Ronald H. Coase 1969, pp. 217-26 extremism hardly helped secure him a for a blow-by-blow account of the meet- sympathetic hearing. George's chief ing.) Again, the main response of the modern biographer says of Walker's dis- economists to George was silence. missive and somewhat unfair attack that The imperviousness of the econo- "For the decade of the '80s . . . [it] mists of his day to George's ideas was could be called the official American not, however, quite so complete as he academic review of Henry George's was wont to claim. For example, Clark main ideas" (Barker 1955, p. 430). Con- (1887, pp. 126-27; 1899, pp. viii, 84, ceivably, had Walker been more concili- 87, 98) indicated theoretical stimulus

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from George, and George's views on eclecticism as to method and policy, all taxation probably had some impact on contributed to this soothing effect. leading younger economists such as Walker's writings, significant in their Seligman, Richard T. Ely, and Thor- day, have not earned immortality, lack- stein Veblen (Barker 1955, p. 567). ing profound new insights and vision, There are even indications that Ameri- yet they retain a modest interest for can undergraduates at leading academic their smaller inspirations and alertness institutions were being introduced to to intriguing facts (see Robert M. Solow George's writings in their economics 1987). His pioneering espousal of effi- courses (William J. Barber, ed. 1988, ciency-wage arguments is especially pp. 110, 196). In Britain, George had noteworthy and The Wages Question substantial impact on the economic (Walker 1876) deserves renewed atten- thinking of Philip Henry Wicksteed and tion. The keynote of his writing was the the Fabians, especially Sidney Webb need to modify the findings and policy and . prescriptions of the classical economists George's apparent exclusion during by close attention to the facts of his the 1880s from the consolidating pro- own world. A transitional figure be- fession of academic economics may be tween classicism and neoclassicism, a an intriguing case study which bears on gradualist rather than a revolutionary, the general question of the estab- "Walker's task was to help challenge lishment and defense of professional and modify certain aspects of British boundaries. But it could perhaps be ar- classical thought, and to create theories gued that it was George's intransigence which helped lead the way to the neo- which excluded the economists from classicism which achieved its triumph what might have seemed at the time a by the turn of the century" (Newton more impressive nascent movement, the 1968, p. 168). Georgist one. A creeping conservatism of outlook after about 1880 increased Walker's an- IX. Retrospect tipathy to proposals for the radical re- form of society and added vehemence Walker, the pragmatic, bluff, hearty, to his peremptory dismissal of George. no-nonsense, quick-tempered econo- This was unfortunate, as Walker's reac- mist-administrator played an important tion served as the "official"-effectively role in the consolidation of academic the only-response to George by the economics in America in the 1880s and academic economists in the decade fol- 1890s, and in its rise to international lowing the appearance of Progress and stature. This came about partly through Poverty. Meaningful dialogue was per- his early work on distribution theory, haps impossible given George's fervent which was widely noticed and helped commitment to promulgating his pre- incite further developments in an area scriptions for society and his antagonis- in which American discussion was to be tic stance toward the academics. But he prominent. But no less important in the did have talent as an economic thinker, critical 1880s was the unifying influence whatever the flaws in his economic he exerted upon a rising profession views, and might have blossomed as an threatened by methodenstreit between economist with encouragement. It is its new German-influenced entrants amusing to speculate on the conse- and their older colleagues. Walker's quences of having switched George for public stature, leadership qualities, and Walker in the cradle. Perhaps he would

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now be established as a prominent fig- gomenon to Progress and Poverty, re- ure in the economists' pantheon. As it vealing his diagnosis and prescription as was, Walker's choice of enmity over am- already shaped by the excesses of the ity toward George must have helped California scene. curtail to some degree the latter's fur- The American tragedy for George ther development as an economic was the federal government's profligate thinker. disposal to private individuals of land George was an odd mixture of realist from the vast public domain, land which and idealist. His cynical views on the should have been retained in collective politics of his day would qualify him as ownership and only rented out to users. a founding number of the public-choice There are interesting parallels to mod- school, yet he remained convinced that ern environmental and common-re- a New Jerusalem could be established source problems. Should individuals or by one simple change in property rights corporations be granted free right to and tax base supported by control of pollute the common environment or ex- monopoly and abandonment of protec- ploit common resources such as ground- tionism. Largely untouched by the ris- water or the broadcasting spectrum? If ing tide of marginalism, his most in- not, should not some scheme of charges teresting and overlooked analytical analogous to George's tax on pure rent contribution is the extension of the be adopted both to promote efficient "magnificent dynamics" of the classical use and conservation and to compensate school (Section III above).24 His treat- the community for dilapidations? Ques- ment of rent arising from agglomeration tions such as these may help point to economies is especially innovative, but George as a vague precursor of modern his ideas on land speculation and the environmental economics (see Bruce business cycle, while ingenious, remain Yandle, Jr. and Andy H. Barnett 1974; unconvincing. Jtirgen Backhaus 1991; Backhaus and With all its faults, Progress and Pov- Jacob J. Krabbe 1991-92).25 erty is a great work, lofty in conception, George was perhaps the last of the memorable in style, and suffused by a great self-taught amateurs of econom- passionate concern for the lot of those ics: Walker the first of the new breed of increasingly left behind in a prospering professionals that was to dominate the but polarizing society-a concern echo- subject. Today these shadowy figures ing eerily in our own era. George's later from the discipline's past are remem- economic writings, especially Protection bered by its members only vaguely, if at or Free Trade (1886), have their rhe- all. The passage of a full century since torical and expository moments, but are the parallel and briefly intersecting distinctly secondary. However, his long lives of these two pioneers ended offers pamphlet Our Land and Land Policy (1871), which predates his economic 25 Two modern arguments invoking George seem further removed from his thought: a) restric- studies, is essential reading as a prole- tion to the single tax as a constitutional constraint on a self-aggrandizing government ever striving to 24 This phase of George's thought has paral- increase its tax base (see Backhaus 1991); b) the lels to the contemporary work of Marshall: see formal "Henry George rule" (expenditure on pub- Whitaker (1974). Both authors emphasized scale lic goods should equal Ricardian rent) as a condi- economics in production, but only Marshall wor- tion for optimum population when diminishing re- ried about their compatibility with competition. turns to land must be balanced against scale However, the regulation and public ownership of economies in the provision of public goods (see monopoly were integral to George's program: see John M. Hartwick 1980 for details and further ref- Section V above. erences).

This content downloaded from 142.58.129.109 on Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:54:57 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Whitaker: George and Walker 1913 a suitable opportunity for their brief re- economists to George are covered in invocation and for reflection upon the Newton (1971-72). Criticism of paths the discipline has taken since George's views by a wide range of indi- their day. viduals is analyzed by various authors in Robert V. Andelson, ed. (1979). See es- Appendix: A Select Guide to the pecially Cord's chapter on Walker and Literature further chapters dealing inter alia with Clark, Seligman, Marshall, Simon N. Walker: Newton (1968) is a compre- Patten, Ely, Herbert J. Davenport, and hensive study of Walker's work in eco- Thomas N. Carver. On the question of nomics and statistics, while Joseph George's influence on Clark see also Dorfman (1949, pp. 101-10) provides a Donald R. Stabile (1995) and Gaffney useful brief assessment. A full-length (1995). Cord (1965), an earlier attempt authorized biography is James P. Mun- to cover the whole gamut of contempo- roe (1923). On Walker's work at MIT rary and later reactions of economists see also Richard P. Adelstein (1988) and historians to George, is comprehen- and Walker's annual reports as presi- sive but uneven. dent to the Trustees. A full list of There is an extensive modern journal Walker's writings on all topics is ap- literature on George's economic views, pended to Munroe, while Newton lists predominantly contained in the pages all the writings on economics, statistics, of the American Journal of Economics and history. Walker's work was exten- and Sociology. Extensive collections of sively discussed in his lifetime and in these articles are reproduced in Will obituary notices (see Newton's bibliog- and Dorothy B. Lissner, eds. (1991) and raphy). But the twentieth century jour- Mark Blaug, ed. (1992). Of most gen- nal discussion is meager, Emmanuel A. eral interest are Yandle and Barnett Goldenweiser (1912), Paul J. FitzPat- (1974), Charles Collier (1979), Frank rick (1957), Backhouse (1987), and Petrella (1981), Terence M. Dwyer Solow (1987) being the main items. (1982), Aaron B. Fuller III (1983), George: The publishing history of Leland B. Yeager (1984), Gaffney George's works is complex and the most (1987a), Backhaus (1991), and Backhaus satisfactory bibliographic source on his and Krabbe (1991-92). writings continues to be Rollin A. For the story of after Sawyer (1926). Scholarly editions of George see Barker (1955, pp. 620-35) George's works are still lacking but a and Cord (1965, pp. 78-79, 103-09, ten-volume collected edition of his 146-48). The general history of the sin- main writings was published shortly af- gle tax is briefly covered in Broadus ter his death (George 1904), the last Mitchell (1934) and Gaffney (1987b). two volumes comprising the fine biogra- T. Nicolaus Tideman (1992) deals with phy by George's son (Henry George, Jr. the general issue of legitimacy of gov- 1900). The standard biography is Barker ernmental expropriation.

(1955), while Edward J. Rose (1968) of- REFERENCES fers a briefer account for the general ADELSTEIN, RICHARD P. "Mind and Hand: Eco- reader. Barker (1968) provides an excel- nomics and Engineering at the Massachusetts lent summary account of George's life. Institute of Technology," in WILLIAM J. BAR- George's visits to Britain are dealt with BER, ed. 1988, pp. 290-317. ANDELSON, ROBERT V., ed. Critics of Henry in great detail by Elwood P. Lawrence George: A centenary appraisal of their stric- (1957) and the reactions of British tures on "Progress and Poverty". Rutherford,

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NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press; London: Associ- Macmillan, 1987, Vol. 2., pp. 514-15; Vol. 4, ated U. Press; 1979. pp. 347-48, 550-51. BACKHAUS, JURGEN G. "Henry George and the . "Henry George's Influence on John Bates Environment," J. Hist. Econ. Thought, Spring Clark: Comment" Ion Stabile 1995], Amer. J. 1991, 13(1), pp. 90-98. Econ. Sociology, July 1995, 54(3), pp. 382-84. BAC,KHAUS, JiJRGEN G. AND KRABBE, JACOB J. GEORGE, HENRY. Our land and land policy: Na- "Henry George's Contribution to Modern Envi- tional and state. San Francisco: White and ronmental Policy: Parts I and II," Amer. J. Bauer, 1871; reprinted in George 1904, Vol. 8, Econ. Sociology, Oct. 1991, 50(4), pp. 485-501 pp. 1-131. and Jan. 1992, 51(1), pp. 115-27. - . Progress and poverty: An inquiry into the BACKHOUSE, ROGER E. "F. A. Walker's Theory of cause of industrial depressions and of increase Hard Times," Hist. Polit. Econ., Fall 1987, of want with increase of wealth-the remedy. 19(3), pp. 435-46. 50th anniversary ed. [a reprint of the fourth BARBER, WILLIAM J., ed. Breaking the academic edition of 1880, not significantly altered from mould: Economists and higher earning in the the first edition of 1879.] New York: Robert nineteenth century. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Schalkenbach Foundation, 1929;. many reprint- U. Press, 1988; reissued under the original ings. Comprises Vol. 1 of George 1904. subtitle. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, GEORGE, HENRY. Social problems. Chicago and 1993. New York: 1883; reprinted as George 1904, Vol. BARKER, CHIARLES A. Henry George. New York: 2. Oxford U. Press, 1955. . : An examination _. "George, Henry" in International encyclo- of the question, with special regard to the pedia of the social sciences. Vol. 6. Ed.: DAVID interests of labor. New York: H. George, 1886; L. SILLS. New York: Free Press, 1968, pp. 151- reprinted as George 1904, Vol. 4. 55. -. A perplexed philosopher. New York: Web- BLAUG, MARK, ed. Henry George (1839-1897). ster, 1892; reprinted as George 1904, Vol. 5. Elgar Reference Collection Series. Pioneers in __. The science of political economy. New Economics Vol. 34. Aldershot, U.K.: Elgar, York: Continental, 1897; reprinted as George 1992. 1904, Vols. 6, 7. Page references are to the lat- CLARK, JOHN BATES. The philosophy of wealth. ter. : Ginn, 1887. . The complete works of Henry George. _ . The distribution of wealth. New York: New York: Doubleday Page, 1904. Ten vol- Macmillan, 1899. umes. COLLIER, CHARLES. "Henry George's System of GEORGE, HENRY, JR. The life of Henry George. Political Economy," Hist. Polit. Econ., Spring New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1900; re- 1979, 11(1), pp. 64-93. printed as Henry George 1904, Vols 9,10. CORD, STEVEN B. Henry George: Dreamer or re- GOLDENWEISER, EMANUEL A. "Walker's Theory alist? Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press, of Immigration," Amer. J. Sociology, Nov. 1912, 1965. 18(3), pp. 342-51. DONOGHUE, MARK. "The Wages-and-Profits GORDON, SCOTT. "The Wage-Fund Controversy: Fund: Classical Remnants in Marshall's Early The Second Round," Hist. Polit. Econ., Spring Theory of Distribution," European Journal of 1973, 5(1), pp. 14-35. the History of Economic Thought, Autumn HARTWICK, JOHN M. "The Henry George Rule, 1995, 2(2), pp. 355-74. Optimum Population, and Interrecional Eq- DORFMAN, JOSEPH. The economic mind in Ameri- uity," Can. J. Econ., Nov. 1980, 13(4Y, pp. 695- can civilization, 1606-1865. Vols. 1-2. New 700. York: Viking, 1946. JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY. The theory of politi- -. The economic mind in American civiliza- cal economy. London: Macmillan, 1871. tion, 1865-1918. Vol. 3. New York: Viking, KEYNES, JOHN MAYNARD. The general theory of 1949. employment, interest and money. London: DWYER, TERENCE M. "Henry George's Thought Macmillan; New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936. in Relation to Modern Economics," Amer. J. LAWRENCE, ELWOOD P. Henry George in the Econ. Sociology, Oct. 1982, 41(4), pp. 363-73. British Isles. East Lansing: Michigan State U. FITZPATRICK, PAUL J. "Leading American Statisti- Press, 1957. cians in the Nineteenth Century," J. Amer. Sta- LISSNER, WILL AND LISSNER, DOROTHY B., eds. tist. Assoc., Sept. 1957, 52(3), pp. 301-21. George and the scholars: A century of scientific FULLER, AARON B., III. "Selected Elements of research reveals the reformer was an original Henry George's Legitimacy as an Economist," economist and a world-class social philosopher. Amer. J. Econ. Sociology, Jan. 1983, 42(1), pp. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 45-61. 1991. GAFFNEY, MASON. (a) "George, Henry," (b) "Sin- MARSIIALL, ALFRED. "Wages and Profits," Quart. gle Tax," (c) "Wallace, Alfred Russel," in The J. Econ., Jan. 1888, 2(2), pp. 218-23; reprinted new Palgrave. Eds.: JOHN EATWELL, MURRAY in ALFRED MARSHALL 1961, Vol. 2, pp. 822- MILGATE, AND PETER NEWMAN. London: 27.

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-. Principles of economics. 9th (variorum) SPENCER, HERBERT. Social statics: or, The condi- ed. Ed.: CLAUDE W. GUILLEBAUD. London: tions essential to human hap-piness specified, Macmillan, [1890] 1961. and the first of them developed. London: Chap- MARSHALL, ALFRED AND MARSHALL, MARY man, 1851. PALEY. The economics of industry. London: STABILE, DONALD R. "Henry George's Influence Macmillan, 1879. on John Bates Clark: The Concept of Rent Was MILL, JOHN STUART. "Thornton on Labour and its Pivotal to Equating Wages with the Marginal Claims: Parts I and II". Fortnightly Review, Product of Labor," Amer. J. Econ. Sociology, May-June 1869, New Series 5, pp. 505-18, July 1995, 54(3), pp. 373-82. 680-700; reprinted in JOHN STUART MILL STIGLER, GEORGE J. AND COASE, RONALD H. 1967, pp. 633-68. "Alfred Marshall's Lectures on Progress and -. reform.; reprinted in JOHN Poverty," J. Law Econ., Apr. 1969, 12(1), pp. STUART MILL [1871]1967, pp. 689-95. 181-226. -. Principles of political economy with some TAUSSIG, FRANK W. Wages and capital. New of their applications to . Vols. York: Appleton, 1896. 2 and 3 of Collected works of John Stuart Mill. TIDEMAN, T. NICOLAUS. "Being Just While Con- Ed.: JOHN M. ROBSON. Toronto: U. of Toronto ceptions of Justice are Changing," Amer. Econ. Press, [1848]1965. Rev., May 1992, 82(2), pp. 280-84. -. Essays on economics and society. Vols. 4 WALKER, AMASA. The science of wealth. Boston: and 5 of Collected works of John Stuart Mill. Little Brown, 1866. Ed.: JOHN M. ROBSON. Toronto: U. of Toronto WALKER, FRANCIS AMASA. "The Wage Fund The- Press, 1967. ory," North Amer. Rev., Jan. 1875, 120, pp. 84- MITCHELL, BROADUS. "Single Tax" in Encyclope- 119. dia of the social sciences. Vol 14. Eds.: EDWIN . The wages question: A treatise on wages R. A. SELIGMAN AND ALVIN JOHNSON. New and the wages class. New York: Holt, 1876. York: Macmillan, 1934, pp. 64-67. Money. New York: Holt, 1878. MUNROE, JAMES P. A Life of Francis Amasa Money in its relation to trade and indus- Walker. New York: Holt, 1923. try. New York: Holt, 1879. NEWTON, BERNARD. The economics of Francis - . "Henry George's Social Fallacies," North Amasa Walker: American economics in transi- Amer. Rev., Aug. 1883a, 137, pp. 147-57. tion. New York: Kelley, 1968. - . Land and its rent. Boston: Little Brown, -. "Impact of Henry George on British 1883b. Economists: Parts I, II, and III," Amer. J. Econ. - . Political economy. 3rd ed. (1st ed. 1883; Sociology, Apr. 1971, 30(2), pp. 179-86; July 2nd abridged ed.1884.) New York: Holt, 1887. 1971, 30(3), pp. 317-27; Jan. 1972, 31(1), pp. . First lessons in political economy. New 87-102. York: Holt, 1889. PETRELLA, FRANK. "Henry George, the Classical International bimnetallism. London: Model and Technical Change: The Ignored Al- Macmillan; New York: Holt, 1896. ternative to the Single Tax in Progress and Pov- . Discussions in economics and statistics. erty," Amer. J. Econ. Sociology, Apr. 1981, Ed.: DAVIS R. DEWEY. New York: Holt, 1899. 40(2), pp. 190-206. WHITAKER, JOHN K. "The Marshallian System in ROSE, EDWARD J. Henry George. New York: 1881: Distribution and Growth," Econ. J., Mar. Twayne, 1968. 1974, 84(1), pp. 1-17. SAWYER, ROLLIN A. Henry George and the single WINCH, DONALD. "Mill, James (1773-1836)," in tax: A catalogue of the collection in the Netv The new Palgrave. Ed.: JOHN EATWELL, MUR- York Public Library. New York: New York Pub- RAY MILGATE AND PETER NEWMAN. London: lic Library, 1926. Macmillan, 1987, Vol. 3, pp. 465-66. SMITH, ADAM. An inquiry into the nature and YANDLE, BRUCE, JR. AND BARNETT, ANDY H. causes of . Vols. 1 and 2 of "Henry George, Property Rights and Environ- the Glasgow Edition of the Works and corre- mental Quality: Classical Answers to 'New' spondence of Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon, Problems," Amer. J. Econ. Sociology, Oct. 1974, [1776] 1976. 33(4), pp. 393-400. SOLOW, ROBERT M. "What Do We Know that YEAGER, LELAND B. "Henry George and Austrian Francis Amasa Walker Didn't?" Hist. Polit. Economics," Hist. Polit. Econ., Sumnmer 1984, Econ., Summer 1987,19(2), pp. 183-89. 16(2), pp. 157-74.

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