Henry George's Theory and an Application to Industrial Siting

Abstract

In this essay we set out to show that Henry George's basic approach to economic thinking is very timely in the light of some pressing problems currently experienced by Western industrialised nations. The paper essentially makes two contributions. The first three sections are designed to show what Henry George's contribution consisted of and how it stands up in the light of contemporary economic thinking. Ultimately, our claim of Henry George's timeliness can only be tested by attempting to show what it can accomplish in trying to deal with a contemporary problem. We take the current clean‐up efforts in the context of the American Superfund programme as our point of departure and suggest how a Georgian approach to industrial siting might result in a more economical use of natural resources, rendering efforts such as the Superfund superfluous in the future. Obviously, before implementing a Georgian system, a phase of transition would be necessary, depending on the different institutional circumstances, and designed to clean up past and present pollution.

Citation

Backhaus, J.G. and Krabbe, J.J. (1988), "Henry George's Theory and an Application to Industrial Siting", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 15 No. 3/4, pp. 103-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb014107