The Science of Political Economy

Summary

The Science of Political Economy (1898) is Henry George's most ambitious theoretical work — an attempt to rebuild the whole of political economy from first principles. Left unfinished at his death in 1897, it was published posthumously.

Content

Where Progress and Poverty argued a thesis, this work tries to lay rigorous foundations: defining wealth, value, and the three factors of production — land, labour, and capital — and insisting on the classical distinction between land (not produced) and capital (produced) that later neoclassical economics would blur (see Gaffney's critique). George sought to show that his conclusions followed from a correct, systematic science rather than moral appeal alone.

Significance

Though incomplete and less read than his polemical works, it is George's clearest statement of method and his insistence on keeping land analytically distinct — the very distinction modern work by Rognlie and others has vindicated.

See Also

• Henry George · Economic Rent · Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem

Sources

1. Henry George (1898), The Science of Political Economy. Full text via the Henry George Institute. henrygeorge.org