Purpose – 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. Design/methodology/approach – Modern discussions of rapid technological and institutional change...

"Henry George was the greatest, most famous and most rejected of early American economists. Without formal education he trained himself in classical economics and developed a theory of a "single tax" suggestive of the work of the earlier French economistes. Academic economists of his day...