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The purpose of this paper is to establish a historical context for the often maligned capital theory of Henry George within a North American frontier tradition that includes John Rae.

Modern discussions of rapid technological and institutional change provide a framework for detailed re‐examination of the capital theories of Rae and George, whose critics were largely constrained by a rigid neoclassical perspective.

Both Rae and George presented capital theories, defined as explanations of the supply of and demand for capital resulting in a determinate capital stock. Both writers stress elements that were not emphasized in neoclassical capital theory, most notably that the capital stock can increase rapidly under certain conditions; increases in knowledge, inventions, technical and technological changes, and scale are more important than mere accumulation of capital; high rates of return combined with rapid technical obsolescence and physical deterioration provide the opportunity for rapid changes in the form of the capital stock, and; the ephemeral nature, and hence potential mobility, of capital implies that security of property is essential for economic growth.

The focus on two writers leads to the question of how widespread their ideas were in nineteenth century North America.

The rapidly changing technology and institutions that Rae and George observed place their theories closer to some modern trends in the study of economic development than to the literature of neoclassical capital theory.

George's grasp of economic theory deserves greater respect than it has often received in the economics literature when his work is considered in its historical context.

A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of land rents and values, and several modes of raising revenues from them besides the conventional property tax.

The paper identifies 16 elements of land's taxable capacity that received authorities either trivialize or omit. These 16 elements come in four groups.

In Group A, Elements 1‐4 correct for the downward bias in standard sources. In Group B, Elements 5‐10 broaden the concepts of land and rent beyond the conventional narrow perception, while Elements 11‐12 estimate rents to be gained by abating other kinds of taxes. In Group C, Elements 13‐14 explain how using the land tax, since it has no excess burden, uncaps feasible tax rates. In Group D, Elements 15‐16 define some moot possibilities that may warrant further exploration.

This paper shows how previous estimates of rent and land values have been narrowly limited to a fraction of the whole, thus giving a false impression that the tax capacity is low. The paper adds 14 elements to the traditional narrow “single tax” base, plus two moot elements advanced for future consideration. Any one of these 16 elements indicates a much higher land tax base than economists commonly recognize today. Taken together they are overwhelming, and cast an entirely new light on this subject.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast three‐factor models of boom and bust from Henry George, Knut Wicksell and Mason Gaffney.

The approach takes the form of an analysis and discussion and mathematical appendix.

It was found that gaffney modifies and incorporates features of both George and Wicksell into his own model.

The works of George, Wicksell and Gaffney are highly relevant, especially given the current economic crisis.

The paper should be useful both to historians of economic thought and contemporary economists. It brings together ideas that have been neglected in recent years, and contributes to the understanding of economic crises.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the virtues (despite Moellendorf's criticisms) of the geoliberal framework of social justice, which assumes that people have rights to themselves and that all people have equal rights to natural opportunities.

After describing geoliberalism, the paper responds to Moellendorf's arguments, enlarging on the issues that arise.

Geoliberalism withstands Moellendorf's criticisms.

People can advocate geoliberal institutions in good conscience.

The paper provides principled, succinct responses to concerns people may have had about geoliberalism.

Henry George was acclaimed by the general public and disdained by the professional economists, largely for the same reasons. For the general public, progress, and poverty seemed to go to the heart of the matter, treating economics as a question of justice. But for the professionals, George was often regarded as a dangerous radical, even though he reasoned within the tradition of Smith, Ricardo, and Mill. However, he conducted his studies at the precise moment of the marginalist revolution, just as the profession was undergoing a transition from political economy to economics. For the former, economic science was embedded in particular political and cultural systems, while the latter aspired to be a pure science with its own mathematics. While some of the marginalists, such as Walras and Marshall, could maintain a commitment to justice, many others found the whole question superfluous. The purpose of this paper is to argue, however, that without some notion of justice, and especially justice in property relations, a complete description of an economy is impossible.

The paper examines three issues: the relation between distributive and corrective justice, the relation between normative and positive science, and the relation between equity and equilibrium.

The paper finds that, without some notion of equity, equilibrium is unattainable. And this relation can be shown to be present in the very starting conditions of neoclassical formulations, which initial conditions are, alas, too often forgotten.

The paper provides an intriguing view of the neoclassicists' different stance in regard to justice, pointing out that William Stanley Jevons, for example, explicitly states that “feelings” of justice are “more or less extraneous to a theory of economics,” and expands upon this argument.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accounts of self‐ and world‐ownership in the social philosophy of Henry George, and a Georgist social theorist Nicolaus Tideman.

The accounts of George and Tideman are evaluated using the tool of conceptual and logical analysis.

The paper argues that although the institutional proposals of Georgist are important and worth serious consideration, there are fundamental problems with the Georgist accounts of self‐ and world‐ownership.

The Georgist institutional recommendation of a land tax is not necessarily rejected by the criticism of the Georgist accounts of self‐ and world‐ownership.

The value of this paper derives from its careful analytic evaluation of the most basic concepts of the Georgist tradition. It serves, then, as a philosophical evaluation of that tradition and of those parts of the tradition that Georgism share with libertarianism generally. It also serves as a comparison of the basic commitments of Georgism and liberal egalitarianism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Benjamin Franklin's understanding of political economy was shaped by his association with the French school of writers known as physiocrats.

The paper works from direct statements by Franklin in his published works and correspondence and biographical sources.

Franklin declared himself to embrace physiocratic principles and ideals but was not able to advance these ideals at home.

Further details are undoubtedly available from sources not translated from French into English.

The course of history would have been significantly different had the physiocratic ideals become the basis for law and public policies.

The paper offers further evidence of the influence of the physiocratic school on Franklin, as one of the leading practical philosophers of his age.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.