If Henry George was able through his theories to end poverty and economic chaos, why was the idea of the single tax not accepted? At the height of the Industrial Revolution, when George was writing Progress and Poverty, many individuals were making vast fortunes, unparalleled in history. They were politically powerful and had the most to lose if a single tax was to be instituted. They owned the land and monopolies that George wanted to confiscate and make common property. They had strong influence in all levels of government, and in higher education. Through their efforts the single tax was hardly ever allowed to be implemented at a local level, and certainly never at the state or federal level.
Many colleges and universities were also influenced by the wealthy. For example, Columbia University received huge grants from J. P. Morgan (banking), as did the University of Chicago, from J. D. Rockefeller (oil). In addition, Cornell University was founded by Ezra Cornell (Western Union) and Stanford University was founded by Leland Stanford (Southern Pacific RR), while the B&O RR had great financial influence over Johns Hopkins. Professors of Economics who associated themselves with the theories of Henry George, or with other radical forms of economic systems, were summarily fired for their views. Among these were Allen Eaton from the University of Oregon and Scott Nearing from the University of Pennsylvania. In their place the universities hired those who eventually became known as Neo-Classical Economists. They all treated land as capital, rather than as an independent source of wealth as had George and many economists before him. This change let the wealthy landowners keep possession of their land, and thus avoid a land-valued single tax. Neo-Classicism became the dominant economic theme in academia, and remains that way today. Many of the underlying facts of economic helplessness mentioned above in the second paragraph are directly attributable to this change in economic theory.