Mason Gaffney

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Mason Gaffney (born October 18, 1923 ; died July 16, 2020 ) was an American economist who did research on Georgism in particular .

Life

In 1937 Gaffney first came into contact with the teachings of Henry George . He read Georges known work Progress and Poverty (Progress and Poverty) is already in high school, and decided to study economics at Harvard. He had to drop out to serve in the Pacific Ocean Areas during World War II . He chose not to go back to Harvard and received his BA in 1948 from Reed College in Portland , Oregon . In 1955 he received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley . His dissertation was entitled "Land Speculation as an Obstacle to Ideal Allocation of Land". Gaffney moved to the University of California, Riverside as a professor in 1976 , and from 1978 held the chair of economics. He was married and had six children.

plant

Gaffney worked particularly from the perspective of Georgism on the role of land rent . He criticizes neoclassical economics for obscuring the role of rent and land ownership in its production and distribution theory, because these are mixed with interest and capital property. Gaffney, on the other hand, promotes the possibility of skimming off the land rent by means of property tax (land value tax) and thus financing public expenditure, in particular state investments. For this he stated that after a restructuring of the tax system and the reduction of taxes on wages and profits, there would still be enough income available. In a commemorative publication for Gaffney, Fred Harrison and Dirk Löhr point out that he had the v. a. In the English-speaking world known as "geoclassics" and a school of thought that goes back to Henry George, "probably developed and shaped like no other (academic) economist".

Publications (selection)

  • Mason Gaffney: Concepts of financial maturity of timber and other assets . North Carolina State College, Raleigh 1957.
  • Mason Gaffney: Extractive Resources and Taxation: Proceedings . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1967.
  • Mason Gaffney, Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources, Alaska Legislature Interim Committee on Oil and Gas Taxation and Leasing Policy: Oil and gas leasing policy: alternatives for Alaska in 1977: a report . 1977.
  • Mason Gaffney: Land as a Distinctive Factor of Production . In: Nicholas Tideman (Ed.): Land and Taxation . Shepheard-Walwyn, London 1994 ( masongaffney.org [PDF]).
  • Mason Gaffney: What price water marketing ?: California's new frontier . In: The American Journal of Economics and Sociology . tape 56 , 1997, pp. 475-520 .
  • Mason Gaffney, Fred Harrison, Kris Feder: The Corruption of Economics . Shepheard-Walwyn, London 1994, ISBN 0-85683-160-3 .
  • Mason Gaffney: The Hidden Taxable Capacity of Land: enough and to spare . In: International Journal of Social Economics . tape 36 , no. 4 , doi : 10.1108 / 03068290910947930 .
  • Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (Eds.): The End of the Rent Economy - How We Can Create Global Welfare and Build a Sustainable Future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 . (Dedicated to Mason Gaffney)

Individual evidence

  1. Josie Faass: Remembering Dr. Mason Gaffney. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, July 23, 2020, accessed on July 29, 2020 .
  2. a b Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (Ed.): The End of the Rent Economy - How we can create global welfare and build a sustainable future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 , pp. 14 .
  3. a b c Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (ed.): The end of the rent economy - How we can create global welfare and build a sustainable future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 , pp. 17 .
  4. ^ A b Mason Gaffney Brief Biography , masongaffney.org, accessed August 23, 2017.
  5. Mason Gaffney: Neo-classical Economics as a Strategem against Henry George . In: Fred Harrison (Ed.): The Corruption of Economics . Shepheard-Walwyn Publishing Co., London, pp. 29-164 ( masongaffney.org [PDF]).
  6. Fred E. Foldvary: A New Concept - Mason Gaffney, the Ultimate Heterodox . In: Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (ed.): The end of the rent economy - How we can create global welfare and build a sustainable future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 , pp. 119-146 .
  7. Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (Ed.): The End of the Rent Economy - How we can create global welfare and build a sustainable future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 , pp. 22 .
  8. Mason Gaffney: The Hidden taxable capacity of land: enough and to spare . In: International Journal of Social Economics . tape 36 , no. 4 , doi : 10.1108 / 03068290910947930 .
  9. Dirk Löhr, Fred Harrison (Ed.): The End of the Rent Economy - How we can create global welfare and build a sustainable future . Metropolis , 2017, ISBN 978-3-7316-1226-1 , pp. 9 .

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