Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology - Vol.27 – serie

This book contains refereed articles on: contrasting relational conceptions of the individual in recent economics; the development of Adam Smith's style of lecturing; a comparison of problems encountered in the historian's work as editor, based upon editing Harrod's papers and Haberler's "Prosperity and Depression"; reminiscences on the New Deal by Jacob Viner; and Don Lavoie's lectures on comparative economic systems. It reviews essays on books about Schumpeter, Keynes, Mincer, comparative economic history, and the Chicago School; as well as reviews of books dealing with the repeal of the Corn Laws, economic systems and economic growth, the Enlightenment and post-modernism, and virtue ethics and capitalism.

The American political economist Henry George devoted his life to the single tax. Virtually forgotten today, his best seller "Progress and Poverty" influenced numerous people in the English-speaking world. His fame and fall were due to a temporary alliance with the American Irish Catholics who were agitating for the land war in Ireland and social change in their new homeland. So significant was this tidal wave of support that it swamped the American consciousness in the late 1870s and early 1880s including prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, some of whom were conservatively inclined. George astutely navigated the waters by working with the radical editor of "The Irish World", Patrick Ford. But then George made a politically awkward friendship with Father Edward McGlynn, an ardent supporter of modernism and the single tax, who was a constant irritant to the church hierarchy and subsequently excommunicated. The issues that McGlynn raised rocked the American Catholic Church and the Vatican itself. The counter-campaign waged by the church and devout Irish Catholics blocked McGlynn and put an end to George's fleeting success.