James Ahiakpor writes:  
-----Original Message-----  
Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 3:13 PM  
Subject: HES: Re: DISC--The George Discussion  
  
(snip)  
I thank Mason Gaffney for his elaboration of Henry George's background   
and activities after publishing his Progress and Poverty.  Mason writes:  
  
"Remember, also, that George evolved over time.  After 1886 he split   
with his socialist allies - at least the more doctrinaire, intolerant   
ones he knew in New York City.  Folks at the von Mises Inst. find little   
to fault in George's Protection or Free Trade, written to support Grover   
Cleveland (although it was a bit overboard for the cautious Grover).   
After the bust of 1893 George rediscovered some of his earlier   
radicalism and lined up first with the Populists, and then with Bryan,   
Altgeld, Tom Johnson, and other radicalized Democrats.  He stayed in   
tune with the temper of the times, for he was always a political   
activist.  You may praise him or fault him for "weathervaning", but that   
was George.  Many of his political associates expressed irritation at   
his constancy, as he never lost view of his basic goal of reforming   
taxation."  
  
But whiles Mason interprets George as being flexible in his thinking as   
against those "perhaps trapped in a one-dimensional paradigm, Left vs.   
Right," I interpret George differently.  He was consistent in his   
thinking and pursuit of socialism, as he himself says, by uniting "the   
truth ... of Adam Smith and David Ricardo" with that of "Proudhon and   
Lassalle."  Smith is well-known for his prescription of free trade and   
Ricardo for pointing out how free trade in corn would delay for a long   
time the arrival of the stationary state.  Thus, George's difference   
with the "intolerant" socialists would be only on their method -- an   
all-out war on private property.  George, instead, had his problems   
mainly with private land-ownership.  
  
(snip)  
  
  
  
Proudhon was not a Marxist; Marx attacked him "with viggah" for proposing  
land taxation, in part along George's later lines.  
  
(I have not studied Lassalle, but Archie Bunker liked his car.)  
  
Dave Ellerman refers to Marx as capitalism's "dancing bear", and makes a  
good point. Marx was useful, to frighten the Babbittry into opposing  
workable reforms.  As to methodology, please note the close parallel between  
Clark's weird concept of capital, and Marx's.  Ask yourself, why do more  
Marxists than Austrians survive in our richly endowed academies?  
  
Mason Gaffney