Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
The impact of Henry George's land value taxation theory was nothing less than global in scope, and his epochal Progress and Poverty – first published in 1879 – gained wider fame than any other political or socio-economic treatise emanating from an American pen. While George's doctrine was essentially a product of of his experience in California during the land-grabbing 60's and 70's, the most pervasive influence of the San Francisco sage was not manifested at home, but in Europe, Australasia and other distant places.
It is with some aspects of this remarkable diffusion of Georgeism during the latter part of the 19th century that this study is concerned. In particular, we would like to examine the circumstances under which this ideological stimulus was transmitted and received in such divergent settings as England, China and Japan. First we will trace the history of the Georgeist influence in each of these countries and then compare their respective patterns of development.
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37 Motora, an American-trained psychologist, received a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins and became acquainted with Georgeism during his stay in the United States.
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49 Ibid., I, No. 3, p. 59.
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54 Scalapino points out that “the legacy of military ethics, the obstacles to legal reform, the lack of understanding of democratic theory, and the absence of conditions that would allow liberal theory to be translated immediately into practice – all combined to encourage the use of force”, op. cit., pp. 316–317.
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56 Ibid.
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59 See Schiffrin, Harold, “Sun Yat-sen's Early Land Policy”, The Journal of Asian Studies, XVI, No. 4 (08, 1957)Google Scholar, for a fuller discussion of the Georgeist influence upon Sun.
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62 Ibid., p. 554.
63 Ibid.
64 In 1907 a T'ung Meng Hui faction opposing the “Equalization of land rights” slogan formed a new organization, the Kung-chin Hui, which cooperated with Sun in all other respects. Landowning supporters of the revolution in the Yangtze valley apparently led this faction. See Tzu-yu, Feng, Ko-ming i-shih, rev. ed., I (Shanghai, 1947), pp. 248–252.Google Scholar
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