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[log in to unmask] (Pat Gunning)
Date:
Thu Jun 29 08:16:04 2006
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I take it that Mason joined the list after the George discussion began.   
In any case, here is a link to the citation.  
  
http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2006-May/006412.html  
  
I was quite surprised to find that the abstract is not available on the   
web. In any case, if you contact me privately, I can probably arrange   
for you to get access to the paper.  
  
Herbert Davenport on the Single Tax  
by Professor J. Patrick Gunning  
     
    Abstract  
  
    Despite a recent claim to the contrary, Herbert J. Davenport was   
firmly against the Henry George proposal to try to raise all public   
funds from a tax on land. This is evidenced by two papers he wrote on   
the subject. Davenport argued that a single tax on land would prompt the   
inefficient use of substitutes for land, that it would tend to destroy   
the base upon which the tax was levied, and that it would offend our   
sense of justice, or the equal treatment principle. The most important   
and effective of his arguments appears to be the first. It was, more   
specifically, that in the event of a land tax, individuals would   
economize on land. They would farm more intensively, they would   
constructing higher buildings, and they would exploit potential   
underground living space. This paper describes Davenport's arguments and   
shows why they have been misinterpreted in the past.  
  
  
There is also a rough chapter-by-chapter description of Davenport's two   
major books, which I wrote while I was researching them back in the mid   
1990s at the following website:  
  
http://www.nomadpress.com/gunning/welcsubj.htm#Selected_Quotations  
  
The first book, Value and Distribution (1908), is probably the best HOT   
book for the period and it was certainly the best written from the   
perspective of the "new economics" that was prevalent in America at the   
time. The second, The Economics of Enterprise (1914), was his best work,   
in my view. Chapters 11-13 may be of particular interest to Georgists.   
Frank Knight said about Davenport's work that it was often difficult to   
comprehend. He writes: "Another discordant factor was the combination of   
a logical mind and a craving to generalize with a bent for realism,   
somewhat opposed to abstraction and theoretical refinement as such. He   
even liked to play with ideas and words, so that his works are not easy   
reading; but he was not concerned to think his conflicts through."   
  
Knight Frank H. (1931) "Davenport, Herbert Joseph." In Encyclopedia of   
the Social Sciences. Vol. 5 (8-9). New York: Macmillan.  
  
  
Pat Gunning  
  
  

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