The logic for taxing the full land rent on economic productivity grounds was set back, ironically, by the most popular journalistic advocate of rent taxation, Henry George. He eloquently denounced American robber barons and England's absentee landlords in Ireland, but his muddled economic logic rejected classical value, price and rent theory in an attempt to show how original he was. In the 1880s he sought to create his own sectarian party, attacking socialists as rivals. His platform excluded all industrial labor reforms, consumer protection and financial reforms as distractions from his Single Tax attack on landlords. To make matters worse, his libertarian opposition to strong government prompted socialists and other reformers to leave land tax advocacy to his followers, turning their focus to industrial labor problems and monopolies.