The Development of Economic Doctrine

387 Pages·2009·20.6 MB·English

by  Alexander Gray

THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ECONOMIC DOCTRINE
AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
By the same Author
THE SOCIALIST TRADITION
Moses to Lenin
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ECONOMIC DOCTRINE
AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
BY
ALEXANDER GRAY, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Witk Folding Ckart
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First Edition:-May 1931.
NewImpressions:-April1933;March 1934;May 1935;September1936;
October 1937; March 1939; January 1941; April
1942; August 1944; April 1946; February 1947;
July 1947; January 1948; June 1948; February
1951; February 1956.
Printed in Great Britain by
Northumberland Press Limited
Gateshead on Tyne
PREF'ACE
CUSTOM and convention very properly require that an
author--at least of anything that looks like a text-book
should make suitable apologies for his action in accentuat
ing the horrid and outrageous disproportion between
supply and demand in the \vorld of books, and that he
should at the same time, for the benefit of reviewers and
others, indicate what particular long-felt gap he imagines
he isfilling. The object of this bookisa very modest one.
The most important word in its title indicates that it is
an introduction, and it is of the essence of an introduction
that it should represent only a beginning of knowledge.
In academic study, as in social life, an introduction is no
more than the first stage in the departure from a state of
complete ignorance, leaving much to be learned later, not
without constantpossibility of surprise.
This book is accordingly designed to be used by the
beginner, along with any of the innumerable text-books
on economics which may be selected for the purpose of
study or instruction. My own experience is that exposi
tion of current and accepted doctrine is always made more
palatable if accompanied by a backward glance at the
development of thought and opinion. If it be true that
the teaching of economics requires almost constant refer
ence to the tenets of the Mercantilists, of the Physiocrats,
of Smith, MaUhus, List and a great cloud of other
witnesses, then even a first.,.year student might properly
S
6 DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMIC DOCTRINE
have in his hands, and by his bedside, a book containing
what he wants to know with regard to the development of
economic doctrine. This, with all respect to other books,
is the gap which this volume is designed to fill.
For, in a sense, the available books on the history of
economic doctrine are too full, too comprehensive..,-let us
say, too good-for the ordinary student, however admir
ably they may serve the purpose of the student who is
specializing. The beginner is merely confused if he is
told somethingabout everybody, or ifit is impressed upon
him that Ortes and Justi call for mention. Important as
they may be, Ortes and Justi can very well afford to wait.
On the other hand, when the interest of the beginner is
engaged, he does want a fairly complete picture; and it is
educationally better that he should have a fairly adequate
idea of the landmarks, even if nothing be done to temper
his dark ignorance elsewhere, than that he should have a
diffused and confused knowledge of a wider field.
In this book, therefore-with my eyes on the beginner
-I have endeavoured so far as practicable to mention
no writer unless I could find space for something like
an intelligible account of what he stood for. I have
accordingly proceeded by a process of selection and
concentration, ruthlessly casting overboard people of quite
considerable importance. Thus in dealing with the
Middle Ages, I have to all intents and purposes confined
the discussion to 51. Thomas Aquinas; so (apart from a
slight reference to Turgot) I have placed on Quesnay the
entire burden of the Physiocrats. In the later period I
have likewise restricted myself to those writers whom
beginnersare most likely to come across.
Not always have I been ruthless without a heavy heart.
McCulloch and the elder Mill I have indeed neglected with
unruffled feelings. Even the German historical school has
gone without causing me much misgiving; somehow the
PREFACE 7
old controversy with regard to (( method " seems less
important to-day than a generation ago, and, with this
decline in significance, the leading figures in that con
troversy seem less insistently to require notice. But I
should have liked to present Cantillon, who may yet come
into his own when a promised reprint is more readily
available; and patriotic motives made me hanker after
John Law, who, as an economist, receives abroad a
measure of respect withheld from him in his own country,
where we tend to look upon him as a financial swash
buckler. So also I should have been glad to find a place
for Coumot, the father of a long line of mathematical
economists. But like other frail vessels, an introductory
text-book also has a Plimsoll-line, and in deference to
warnings regarding the dangers of foundering due to over
loading, these and other precious bales have had to be left
behind on the quay. As a consequence of this policy of
rigorous exclusion in order to allow for fuller treatment of
those included, I flatter myself that in no other book
professing to be a history of econolnic doctrine are so
many notable names entirely unmentioned.
There is evidence on all sides that the study of the
development of economic doctrine is receiving to-day far
more attentio~ in English-speaking countries than was
accorded to it by the last generation. I should like to
think that this little book may encourage what I regard
as a praiseworthy tendency, and that it may serve as a
useful stepping stone to the more comprehensive works of
Haney and of Gide and Rist.
ALEXANDER GRAY.
MARISCHAL COLLEGE,
ABERDEEN,
March, I931.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 1'0 SECOND IMPRESSION
I TAKE the opportunity of a reprint of this book to record
three events relating to the literature of the subject.
Firstly, Cantillon's Essai sur la nature du commerce en
general, referred to in the preface above, has now been
published for the Royal Economic Society by Macmillan
and Co. Secondly, the work of Suranyi-Unger, mentioned
on page 374, is now available in an English translation:
Economics in the Twentieth Century (Allen & Unwin).
Thirdly, a large and detailed work on the history of
economic doctrine, by H. W. C. Bordewijk, has appeared
in Dutch under the title Theoretisch-historische Inleiding
tot de Economie. Itislargely devoted to the Mercantilists,
the Physiocrats and the Classical School.
A.G.
CONTENTS
'AGK
PREFACE 5
CHAP.
I. GREECE AND ROME II
II. THE MIDDLE AGES. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
ORESME 4°
III. MERCANTILISM 65
IV. THE PHYSIOCRATS: QUESNAY fu~D TURGOT 96
V. ADAM SMITH -" 119
VI. MALTHUS AND RICARDO. 155
VII. LAUDERDALE, RAE AND SISMONDI 19°
VIII. MULLER, LIST AND VON THUNEN 217
IX. THE OPTIMISTS: CAREY AND BASTIAT 248
X. THE CLASSICAL TRADITION: SAY, SENIOR, J. S.
MILL AND CAIRNES • 266
XI. KARL MARX 293
XII. THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL. THE THEORY OF THE
MARGIN 330
EPILOGUE 363
NOTES FOR FURTHER READING • 37°
INDEX 375
FACSIMILE DIAGRAM
Reproduction of the Tableau Economique from the
Elemens de la Philosophie rurale by the Marquis de
Mirabeau • . facing p. 106
9