Twenty-Five Years of Teaching Henry George's Political Economy

Edward J. Dodson

[Reprinted from Progress, July-August 2006]

My earliest encounter with Henry George's proposals came as a result of a chance exchange of correspondence with a Pennsylvania state official named Al Hydeman. This was in 1973, not long after I graduated from college and began my working career for a real estate finance and development firm. The Governor of Pennsylvania had announced the state would begin to meet with community leaders around the state to discuss the creation of a statewide land-use plan. I wrote the Governor expressing an interest and received a response from Al Hydeman. He sent me a package of material to read, including several papers supporting the movement to land-value taxation. Henry George was referred to as the architect of this idea.

Nothing much happened after that, as I recall, until 1980, when I moved from the Philadelphia suburbs into the city, close enough to my office (I was now managing the mortgage loan department for a large regional bank) to walk to work every day. I never met Al Hydeman, but just a few years earlier, in 1978, he had delivered the keynote address at the annual Georgist conference held near Philadelphia, at Bryn Mawr College. In 1980, I began to think of continuing my education in pursuit of a graduate degree. However, after seven years away from the classroom, I looked around for an opportunity to take a course or two without formally entering a degree program. One day I came across an advertisement for tuition-free courses in economics at the Henry George School of Social Science. I only vaguely remembered the name of Henry George, but decided to visit the school and, if this seemed like a good way to return to serious study, take a course or two.

I suspect that many, perhaps most, readers of Progress know that the dwelling in which Henry George lived as a young child has served as the headquarters of the Philadelphia extension of the Henry George School of Social Science since the 1950s. When I arrived at the building in 1980, I was at first dismayed, as the appearance of the building was less than encouraging - a small, aging building, with one classroom and nothing to suggest this was a serious institution of learning. What convinced me to enroll was the conversation I then had with the distinguished person who served as director, George Collins. During this first ten weeks of study, George patiently walked the class - there may have been eight or ten of us, I do not recall for sure -- thru each lesson, encouraged questions, and facilitated discussion. By the end of the course, I was already thoroughly in agreement with George's analysis and captivated by the depth of Progress and Poverty. So, without a break, I enrolled in the school's second and third courses.

Prior to the beginning of classes in the Fall of 1981, George Collins asked if I might be interested in becoming a teacher at the school. Even though I still had in mind getting into graduate school, I accepted his invitation and began my twenty-five year tenure as a member of the school's volunteer faculty.

A beginning teacher at the school was normally partnered with one of the more experienced teachers. In my case, George Collins became my mentor, sitting in on the classes I taught and providing me with assistance when needed. The material for each weekly lesson came from a teacher's manual prepared by the Henry George School in New York and periodically updated. Students were assigned sections of Progress and Poverty to read and asked to prepare written answers to a list of questions relating to the reading assignment. We could expect that fewer than half of the students would actually complete the reading assignment, and even fewer would answer the questions. Needless to say, this meant that teaching often required far more lecturing than serving as a discussion leader.

At the end of each ten-week session, the School would hold a graduation ceremony. Those students who satisfactorily completed the three core courses were (and still are) awarded a certificate and are thereafter considered a graduate of the Henry George School. I do not have any statistics on the number of graduates, but over the last quarter century I would guess there have been an average of around ten a year - more in some years, less in others. Seldom in my teaching experience did I end up with more than half of the students who began the introductory course sticking with it until the end. Some students lost interest because the course was not what they had anticipated. Others encountered work or family conflicts and had to withdraw. I learned - eventually - not to take the loss of students personally.

It was not long before I became totally immersed in "Georgist work," joining with the handful of other Philadelphia Georgists agitating to convince local officials to support land-value taxation. Steven Cord nominated me to become a trustee of the Henry George Foundation of America and then recruited me to become co-editor of its newsletter, Equal Rights. In 1982, at Fred Harrison's invitation, I began to contribute articles for publication in Land & Liberty. And, in 1984, I became a trustee of the Henry George School, making the trip each month to New York to participate in board meetings. George Collins was also a trustee, and we frequently traveled together, engaging in many interesting philosophical discussions that broadened my education.

I eventually taught all three of the school's core courses, gradually moving away from the formal lesson structure in favor of a lecture-discussion format. In the era before PowerPoint software and projection equipment, I prepared a series of posters to hammer home the terms and definitions key to the political economy of Henry George. These tools worked reasonably well. However, I was constantly chagrined when, at the end of ten weeks, many students still did not have a firm grasp of the difference between "land" and "capital." Somehow, during this period I also managed to make time to take on students from the Henry George Institute. As I recall, Bob Clancy often asked if I could take on a second student, but I knew I would not be able to keep up with the required work given all of my other commitments.

Now that my thinking had been enriched by my study of Henry George's works and other Georgist authors, I resolved to begin studying for an advanced degree. My first choice was the University of Pennsylvania, and I completed two courses in economics there before transferring to Temple University (also located in Philadelphia) after being accepted into the Masters of Liberal Arts program. Nearly every paper I wrote in pursuit of this degree is available in the School of Cooperative Individualism library, including a 1989 study titled, "In the Land Down Under: Sydney: Promise Fulfilled?" that Progress readers in Australia might find entertaining reading. I continued to teach at the Henry George School during the five years while I worked to earn my degree, albeit less consistently than in the few previous years.

One of the things I found rather remarkable at the time I was working on my masters degree was that so many of my fellow students possessed a very weak understanding of history, of political philosophy, and (no surprise) of political economy. I decided to develop a proposal for an interdisciplinary course I would offer to teach at the undergraduate level (e.g., to first year students). The head of my department liked the idea but advised there was no room in the curriculum for this course. I then offered to teach the course in the university's non-credit program, but this proposal was also rejected because the course was thought to compete with existing for-credit courses.

At some point I related all this to George Collins, and George suggested that I bring the course to the Henry George School. This made good sense to us because one of the challenges we faced with students coming to the school was that few were very well read. Much of what was in Progress and Poverty was, indeed, far outside their educational experience and their reading. Malthus? Adam Smith? Ricardo? None of these historical figures were familiar to the majority of our students. So, in the Fall of 1990 I first taught this new course offering, "The Search for the Just Society." George Collins was by this time the new Director of the school in New York, and Mike Curtis took over the job of Extension Director in Philadelphia. Mike was just as willing as George to try new approaches, so we continued to test the market with this course.

The course outline expanded over the next few years and has been made available on-line as a resource for teachers. Despite the success of the course, one of our expectations and hopes was that students who completed the course would have their interest in political economy heightened and would then enroll in the school's core program. With few exceptions, this did not occur. Students expressed great satisfaction with the course, the material covered, the discussions and exchanges of perspectives, but they did not come back for more. This was, and is, very perplexing.

Student enrollment at the Philadelphia extension experienced a decline during much of the 1990s, so that some parts of the year classes could not be formed. There were times when I have taught a class with only three or four students at the beginning, and one or two who have stayed through the entire ten weeks. One of the advanced courses might have only one student enrolled. Still, we continued to experiment, to try to improve our presentation of the material and, as early as possible in the course, let the students know they were at the beginning of what may be a life-changing experience.

My own style of teaching is very much that of the story-teller, doing my best, as the saying goes, to "make it real." This comes from my love of history and the rich lessons to be learned by discussing the past.

The first evening I devote to a history of the Henry George School and the life and work of Henry George. I explain to students that George was the last in a long line of political economists and that in this course they will learn the advantages using the tools of the political economist - and of Henry George, particularly - in examining how the world really works. Throughout the course, I provide them with a comparison of what various schools of economists have offered as their explanations, and then ask the students whether they think political economy or economics seems to best explain the world we actually live in.

At the end of the first night, I distribute an eight or nine page document that provides the students with all of the basic terms and definitions to be used in the course. This document also provides a simple, graphical presentation of how wealth is produced and how the size of the "wealth pie" has grown over time, how "rent" first arises and gradually becomes an increasing share of total wealth and what are the economic and social consequences of this historical process. Essentially, the student is provided with all of the building blocks of political economy right up front. Over the next nine weeks, we go thru this document page by page, with as much reinforcement and discussion as necessary to keep them thinking. The students are encouraged to read appropriate sections of Progress and Poverty each week but are not assigned a list of questions to answer (although these questions are provided as a helpful study aid). Of late, the number of students enrolled and our retention rate in each class has been improving.

In just a few days we will begin the Fall term at the Henry George School. This term we are offering students a choice of two evenings to take the beginning course. Richard Biddle, now the Extension Director, will teach one group. I will teach the second. We are excited to have a brand new tool to test out. Progress and Poverty has been totally rewritten as a modern text by one of our Chicago colleagues, Bob Drake. We take nothing away from the greatness of Henry George's writing. More important, we think, is that students find this book within their grasp - and will read it cover to cover. We shall soon find out.

Georgist education has its role to play, one that must not be ignored if we are to rebuild a global justice movement. There are many approaches to the challenge of bringing our message to a broad audience. Sometimes, the best results are achieved a few people at a time.