This responds to James' comments, reproduced below.  
  
By selective quotes you can make out George to have been a libertarian, or a  
socialist, because he was a bit of each. He summed it up once: "I can no  
more refer to myself as a socialist or a free-marketer than an astronomer,  
explaining how planets revolve around the sun, can call himself a  
centrifugalist or a centripetalist." That is the essential George, which  
critics of either extreme have difficulty even conceiving, let alone  
accepting. They (not necessarily James) are perhaps trapped in a  
one-dimensional paradigm, Left vs. Right.  
  
Some latter-day Georgists, also affected by one-dimensional thinking, split  
into two camps, Left and Right.  Allied with libertarians are or were Frank  
Chodorov, Albert J. Nock, Jack Schwartzman, and others.  Allied with  
socialists are or were Norman Thomas, Carey McWilliams, Upton Sinclair, and  
others.  Many others, like the good astronomer, hew to the balance of  
forces.  It's hard to escape from the constant bombardment of unilateral  
thinking.  Yet that is what we must do, to be good economists.  
  
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.  
  
Hope the above helps modern readers understand George.  
  
Mason Gaffney  
  
  
  
Below is what James wrote:  
  
Delighted to see Mason Gaffney re-enter the discussion.  Since his   
scolding of me for having referred to Marxian analysis, I've read from   
Henry George the intent for arguing the single-tax proposal.  George's   
goal is "to unite the truth perceived by the school of Smith and Ricardo   
to the truth perceived by the schools of Proudhon and Lassalle; to show   
that laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to a   
realization of the noble dreams of socialism" (4th ed., p. xxi).  (Note   
that Proudhon considers private property to be theft.)  And like Marx   
who argued that all value derives from labor and not giving labor all of   
production amounts to exploitation, George argues that "private property   
in land always has, and always must, as development proceeds, lead to   
the enslavement of the laboring class" (p. xx).  It is from such   
reasoning that George sought to dispute the wages-fund explanation of   
wage rate determination and also denied the classical inverse   
wage-profit relation argument in chapter 1 of his book.  
  
Most mothers, I'm inclined to believe, tell their children to watch the   
company they keep.  Perhaps Mason and most advocates of land-rent tax   
just want to argue to motivating aspect of taxing land so its holders   
put them to their highest net income-earning uses.  But I think people   
who refer to themselves as Georgists must also bear in mind that Henry   
George had the goal of establishing socialism with his single-tax   
proposal.  I wish they would not get overly excited when that motivation   
is brought up.  
  
James Ahiakpor