Henry George (1839 1897) was a remarkable, self-taught radical American political-economist who developed a theory of land taxation, which evolved to become, in essence, a programme for applying a single, substantial annual tax on all land but not on improvements to the land such as buildings - while abolishing all other taxes.

George took to sea when he was still a teenager, visiting Melbourne soon after the Gold Rush began, in 1855. His travels took him to India and then back to San Francisco (more gold) where he found an Australian born wife. George was opposed both to contemporary capitalism and socialism and could, according to certain reports, pick a fight at a Buddhist picnic in a pico-second.

George began writing and publishing extensively on what became known as Georgeism, in San Francisco and developed a fervent worldwide following, despite - or because of his polemical manner. There is a Henry George House in Hardware Lane in Melbourne, which once housed the Henry George League and the Henry George Justice Party that was active in the 1950s. It sold, in 2022, for A$7.42 million, as it happens.

Quiet independently of Henry George, similar revenue schemes emerged elsewhere, most prominently and successfully in Hong Kong, where the dominant, land-related revenue regime has underpinned Hong Kongs long-standing, low-tax system for close to 200 years.

Now, amid a profound, national affordable housing crisis, Georgeism is making yet another comeback in the US, not least in Silicon Valley, as explained in an attentive, extended recent review in the New York Times, by Conor Dougherty, titled: The Georgists Are Out There, and They Want to Tax Your Land.

Georges fiscal-economic reasoning was controversial from the outset and it remains so, today. Yet certain insights about the centrality of land in creating and hoarding wealth, mean that critical thinking which draws on Georges exceptionally articulated, first-mover understanding, has never died out. There is also, as it happens, significant scope to consider innovative land-related revenue development in China.