The Fallacies of
Economics Professor Richard Ely

Joseph Dana Miller

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, July-August 1929]

We regret that such a high-toned and valuable daily as the Ohio State Journal of Columbus, Ohio, should publish in its issue of June 16 an article by the National Association of Real Estate Boards in praise of Prof. Richard T. Ely, of the Northwestern University. We do not know of a university teacher and publicist who has done so much to degrade academic life, and to make it a jest and by-word than has Ely. He is a professed teacher of youth, yet he is in the pay of large landed and public utility interests.

He is trying to serve two masters Monopoly and education. To serve the first he has abandoned utterly the economic teachings of his earlier years and teaches what even the superficial mind should be able to detect as exceedingly preposterous notions regarding land values taxation and public utilities. One has only to compare his old with his new text books to perceive how completely he has gone over to the monopolistic interests which subscribe heavily to his Research Institute. In his prospectus of the establishment of the new Institute he announced that there would be years of research world with the publication of not less than fifty volumes. This humbug is easily perceived when it is noted that, at the very outset, he gives his conclusions. This is not research. The sincere investigator does not do these things. It is the method of the partisan pleader.

Ely appears as the economic attorney for the land speculators in their struggle to retain unjust economic privileges. And the reason given for the removal of this institute from the University of Wisconsin to the Northwestern University is not the true one.