Mason Gaffney wrote: >What is historical is that one Wang-an Shih, a finance minister in the Sung >Dynasty about the time of the Norman conquest of England, successfully >promoted taxation of land, a policy that succeeded in perpetuating the >dynasty for another 200 years; and that Turgot, the Physiocrat, became known >as the French Confucius (probably Taoist would be more accurate); and that >George replicated most of Turgot's ideas (probably independently, with a >boost from Mill); and that Dr. Sun read George when in Hawaii, and >incorporated them as "right livelihood" in the San Min Chu I; and that >Taiwan idolized Dr. Sun, long after his death, and incorporated many of his >ideas in the land reform and tax reform policies, creating one of the >"Tiger" economies. I am not sure about the connection between Shih and Turgot, but I can add that the Taiwanese policy was advanced by the fact that General MacArthur was a Georgist and that his deputy, (whose name escapes me at the moment) who was responsible for reorganizing the land systems of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, was a Distributivist. The Kuomintang had never been able to carry out any meaningful reform on the mainland. However, under the twin impetus of the demands of MacArthur and the fear of a communist victory, Taiwan was able to reform their land system, a reform that transformed Taiwan from a feudal society to an industrial state within one generation, and did so with rising levels of equity and stability, in complete contradiction to the Kuznet's curve. Because of the twin influences of MacArthur and Sun Yat-sen, Georgism has had a greater sway in the East than in the West. John C. Medaille