Academic Purges of Georgist Economists

Overview

In The Corruption of Economics (1994), Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison list three early-20th-century American academics — Scott Nearing (University of Pennsylvania, 1915), Elisha Benjamin Andrews (Brown University, 1897), and Allen H. Eaton (University of Oregon, 1917) — as casualties of institutional hostility toward land-value-tax and single-tax sympathizers, part of a broader argument that neoclassical economics was reshaped to marginalize Henry George.[1] Independent historical accounts of each case, however, cite different proximate causes — Nearing's outspoken opposition to child labor before a trustee board dominated by bankers and executives, Andrews's advocacy of "free silver" monetary policy, and Eaton's pacifism during World War I — without independently confirming a land-tax-specific motive, making Gaffney and Harrison's "purged for Georgism" framing a contested interpretation rather than an established consensus (see Narrative: The Corruption of Economics for the wider evidentiary debate over the book's intentionality thesis).

The Three Cases

Scott Nearing was dismissed from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in June 1915 when trustees declined to renew his contract despite a favorable faculty recommendation; contemporary and modern accounts attribute the decision to his radical economic views and prominent opposition to child labor, and the episode became a landmark case in the founding of the American tenure system.[2]

Elisha Benjamin Andrews, president of Brown University, resigned in 1897 after members of the university's governing Corporation objected to his public advocacy of "free silver" monetary policy, a controversy that reportedly cost the university donor support. Twenty-four Brown professors and hundreds of alumni petitioned for his reinstatement on academic-freedom grounds, and Andrews withdrew his resignation.[3]

Allen H. Eaton was expelled from the University of Oregon faculty in 1917 for his pacifism during World War I, a dismissal publicly criticized by the novelist Upton Sinclair.[4]

Significance and Caveats

Gaffney and Harrison present these three cases as part of a wider pattern of "institutional mechanisms" — alongside the founding of the American Economic Association by George's personal adversaries and Richard T. Ely's railroad-funded land-economics institute — that they argue marginalized George's ideas within academic economics.[1] The book is explicitly polemical in structure and intent, and its specific claim that these three dismissals turned on Georgist sympathy — rather than on the child-labor, free-silver, and pacifism controversies documented in independent sources — is not corroborated by those sources. Readers should treat the "purged for Georgism" framing as Mason Gaffney's and Harrison's interpretation of a broader climate of hostility toward heterodox economists, not as a settled finding about the specific cause of any one dismissal.

See Also

• Narrative: The Corruption of Economics — the wider, carefully attributed debate over whether neoclassical economics deliberately suppressed George
• The Corruption of Economics (book) — full summary of Gaffney and Harrison's argument
• Richard T. Ely — founder of the railroad-and-NAREB-funded land-economics institute cited alongside these cases
• Mason Gaffney — the book's principal author

Sources

1. Mason Gaffney & Fred Harrison, The Corruption of Economics, Shepheard-Walwyn, 1994 — used for the claim that Nearing, Andrews, and Eaton were dismissed for Georgist sympathies, and for the wider "institutional mechanisms" argument. Publisher · wiki summary
2. "University of Pennsylvania Fires Scott Nearing Over Radical Economic Views," Today in Civil Liberties History — used for the documented circumstances and stated cause of Nearing's 1915 dismissal and its role in the founding of academic tenure. Link
3. "Elisha Andrews," Wikipedia — used for the free-silver controversy and the 1897 resignation and reinstatement at Brown University. Link
4. "Allen H. Eaton," Wikipedia — used for the 1917 pacifism-related dismissal from the University of Oregon faculty. Link