It's hard to measure precisely how popular it was historically but he campaigned for Mayor of NYC as a Georgist and finished 2nd ahead of Teddy Roosevelt who finished 3rd. So Henry George at least was well liked.
The book itself was the best selling economics book of the 19th century. It inspired art demonstrations and some governments throughout the world even adopted LVT for a while. So yes, it was pretty popular.
Can you imagine anyone showing up at an economists funeral today, except to heckle?
It's unfortunate that this project mixes Georgism w/ dehumanized modern architecture. Most people want to live in traditional, walkable neighborhoods, as prices suggest.
Many people who were first influenced by Henry George's ideas became impatient with the "organicness" of them, and moved to promoting socialism because they thought it would achieve their objectives more quickly. But George was convinced that it had to grow organically.
George Bernard Shaw was perhaps the most famous of them.
Henry George had public debates with several socialists (Serge Shevitch was one - 1887; Henry Hyndman another). They're great reading.
I'd say he will be the most influential economist of both centuries. For those who don't who he is, the man is a fantastic public speaker on top of everything and there are a ton of videos on YouTube to get you familiarized.
HG was born in Philadelphia (1839); arrived in San Francisco by 1860 or so, and lived in California until early 1880. He wrote "Our Land and Land Policy" and "Progress and Poverty" during that period, as well as owning and editing the SF Daily Evening Post for 4 years between those books. He then moved to NYC, where he lived until his death in 1897.
His chief economist Henry Charles Carey helped produce 100 years of prosperity through a balanced approach to trade and the free market. A very deep thinker about the impact of mechanization on labor, as well.
I'm not all the way through the book, but I believe this is basically the point. Once Moses' "success" in NY became known, everywhere else in the US started to copy his approach. So he really did have a national influence.
Dr. Mason Gaffney, the remarkable economics professor at UC Riverside whose work was inspired by the insights of Henry George, has died, at 96. A tribute at https://schalkenbach.org/file-12/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/... provides a sense of the scope of his writings over the course of 75 years. It has links and commentary on many of his writings.
It starts with Henry George's central philosophical principle:
"The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air—it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot suppose that some men have a right to be in this world and others no right.
If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty— with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers. This is a right which is natural and inalienable; it is a right which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and which during his continuance in the world can be limited only by the equal rights of others."
source: http://progressandpoverty.org/files/george.henry/pp071.html#...
The corresponding economic principle is that we ought to recognize our equal rights to the earth by collecting all the rental value of land and other natural opportunities as shared public revenue.
Gaffney's work, like Henry George's thought, shows that economics is not a dismal science.
His writing is erudite, witty and hopeful, and provides a perspective most economics majors never get exposed to.
Is there a good book on Theodore Roosevelt anyone can recommend? He seems like the kind of man and leader that has completely disappeared in this century
The book itself was the best selling economics book of the 19th century. It inspired art demonstrations and some governments throughout the world even adopted LVT for a while. So yes, it was pretty popular.
reply