Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem
against Henry George
Mason Gaffney
1
eoclassical economics is the idiom of most economic discourse
today. It is the paradigm that bends the twigs of young minds. Then
it confines the florescence of older ones, like chicken-wire shaping
a topiary. It took form about a hundred years ago, when Henry George and
his reform proposals were a clear and present political danger and challenge
to the landed and intellectual establishments of the world. Few people
realize to what degree the founders ofNeo-classical economics changed the
discipline for the express purpose of deflecting George and frustrating
future students seeking to follow his arguments. The strategem was
semantic: to destroy the very words in which he expressed himself. Simon
Patten expounded it succinctly. “Nothing pleases a …single taxer better
than … to use the well-known economic theories … [therefore] economic
doctrine must be recast” (Patten, 1908: 219; Collier, 1979: 270).’
George believed economists were recasting the discipline to refute him.
He states so, as though in the third person, in his posthumously published
book, The Science ofPoliticalEconomy(George, 1898:200-209). George’s
self-importance was immodest, it is true. However, immodesty may be
objectivity, as many great talents from Frank Lloyd Wright to Muhammed
Ali and Frank Sinatra have displayed. George had good reasons, which we
are to demonstrate. George’s view may even strike some as paranoid. That
was this writer’s first impression, many years ago. I have changed my view,
however, after learning more about the period, the literature, and later
events.

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I, Uta, am very interested in finding out why there is so much resistance to applying the ideas that Henry George promoted in the 19th century.

The above publication seems to be giving some interesting links.