Introduction: Reviving the Work of America’s Most Original Economist

Abstract

The book begins with Andrew Mazzone, his desire to reexamine Henry George’s work, his sudden death, and how the book came to be written. It takes George’s dynamic vision and approach as a position from which to challenge mainstream economics’ obsession with equilibrium, enabling a focus on the paradoxical fact that progress also generates poverty. The book has three parts: the first on rents, land values, and the costs of government; the second filling in a picture of macroeconomics for George, who long preceded Keynes; and the third, drawing on George’s approach, examining the contribution of rents to the growth of inequality and financial instability.