Davenport: 'Single Taxer of the Looser Observance'

摘要

Herbert Joseph Davenport (1861-1931) was a prominent, early twentieth-century American economist whose contributions to economic analysis include a sophisticated opportunity-cost theory and a series of lucid presentations of marginal utility theory. Something of an iconoclast, he criticized many of his fellow economists and befriended his former teacher Thorstein Veblen at a time when most economists had lost interest in Veblen's theatrical personality and sweeping denunciations of economic principles. In addition to these accomplishments, Davenport is cited by George R. Geiger in his important book The Philosophy of Henry George, as a major critic of George's theory of capital. Geiger argues that the "classical" distinction between land and capital was "a crucial one for George's economic system," and that "Professor Davenport was perhaps the most characteristic critic of this type of distinction." But following these forthright assertions about George's system and Davenport's criticism of it, Geiger equivocates and severely qualifies his initial declaration that Davenport was "perhaps the most characteristic critic."