Georgist Economics: Land, Rent, and the Commons

In Progress and Poverty (1879), Henry George asked why poverty persisted alongside enormous progress. His answer was land: as cities grow, the value of land rises, and that gain flows to landowners who did nothing to create it. His remedy was to tax land values and lift taxes from work and investment.

The book became one of the best-selling of its century and inspired admirers from Leo Tolstoy to Sun Yat-sen. Economists across the spectrum, including Milton Friedman, William Vickrey, and Joseph Stiglitz, have praised the land value tax, and Georgist ideas are enjoying a revival in today's debates over housing affordability.

You will study the theory of economic rent from Ricardo onward, the evidence from places that tax land, and how Georgist ideas apply to housing, natural resources, and new commons like the radio spectrum.

Critics point to the difficulty of separating land value from building value, the fairness of taxing current owners who paid for land, and whether a land tax can raise enough revenue. Supporters point to Pennsylvania's split-rate cities, Denmark, and Singapore. You will study the theory and the evidence and judge where land taxation fits.

Elton's program is pluralist: your professors help you understand each school on its own terms, weigh it fairly against the evidence, and reach your own conclusions.