John Kells Ingram
(1888)
A History of Political Economy
Chapter I
Introductory
In the present condition of Political Economy, the production of new dogmatic
treatises on the subject does not appear to be opportune. There are many works,
accessible to every one, in which, with more or less of variation in details,
what is known as the "orthodox" or "classical" system is expounded. But there
exists in England and other countries widespread dissatisfaction with that
system, and much difference of opinion with respect both to the method and the
doctrines of Economic Science. There is, in fact, good reason to believe that
this department of social theory has entered on a transition stage, and is
destined ere long to undergo a considerable transformation. But the new body of
thought which will replace, or at least profoundly modify, the old, has not yet
been fully elaborated. The attitude of mind which these circumstances seem to
prescribe is that of pause and retrospection. It is thought that our position
will be rendered clearer and our further progress facilitated by tracing
historically, and from a general point of view, the course of speculation
regarding economic phenomena, and contemplating the successive forms of opinion
conceding them in relation to the periods at which they were respectively
evolved. And this is the task undertaken in the following pages.
Such a study is in harmony with the best intellectual tendencies of our age,
which is, more than anything else, characterised by the universal supremacy of
the historical spirit. To such a degree has this spirit permeated all our modes
of thinking, that with respect to every branch of knowledge, no less than with
respect to every institution and every form of human activity, we almost
instinctively ask, not merely what is its existing condition, but what were its
earliest discoverable germs, and what has been the course of its development?
The assertion of J. B. Say(1) that the history of Political Economy is of little
value, being for the most part a record of absurd and justly exploded opinions,
belongs to a system of ideas already obsolete, and requires at the present time
no formal refutation.(2) It deserves notice only as reminding us that we must
discriminate between history and antiquarianism: what from the first had no
significance it is mere pedantry to study now. We need concern ourselves only
with those modes of thinking which have prevailed largely and seriously
influenced practice in the past, or in which we can discover the roots of the
present and the future.
When we thus place ourselves at the point of view of history, it becomes
unnecessary to discuss the definition of Political Economy, or to enlarge on its
method, at the outset. It will suffice to conceive it as the theory of social
wealth, or to accept provisionally Say's definition, which makes it the science
of the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. Any supplementary
ideas which require to be taken into account will be suggested in the progress
of our survey, and the determination of the proper method of economic research
will be treated as one of the principal results of the historical evolution of
the science.
The history of Political Economy must of course be distinguished from the
economic history of mankind, or of any separate portion of our race. The study
of the succession of economic facts themselves is one thing; the study of the
succession of theoretic ideas concerning the facts is another. And it is with
the latter alone that we are here directly concerned. But these two branches of
research, though distinct, yet stand in the closest relation to each other. The
rise and the form of economic doctrines have been largely conditioned by the
practical situation, needs, and tendencies of the corresponding epochs. With
each important social change new economic questions have presented themselves;
and the theories prevailing in each period have owed much of their influence to
the fact that they seemed to offer solutions of the urgent problems of the age.
Again, every thinker, however in some respects he may stand above or before his
contemporaries, is yet a child of his time, and cannot be isolated from the
social medium in which he lives and moves. He will necessarily be affected by
the circumstances which surround him, and in particular by the practical
exigencies of which his fellows feel the strain. This connection of theory with
practice haS its advantages and its dangers. It tends to give a real and
positive character to theoretic inquiry; but it may also be expected to produce
exaggerations in 'doctrine, to lend undue prominence to particular sides of the
truth, and to cause transitory situations or temporary expedients to be regarded
as universally normal conditions.
There are other relations which we must not overlook in tracing the progress of
economic opinion. The several branches of the science of society are so closely
connected that the history of no one of them can with perfect rationality be
treated apart, though such a treatment is recommended -- indeed necessitated --
by practical utility. The movement of economic thought is constantly and
powerfully affected by the prevalent mode of thinking, and even the habitual
tone of sentiment, on social subjects generally. All the intellectual
manifestations of a period in relation to human questions have a kindred
character, and bear a certain stamp of homogeneity, which is vaguely present to
our minds when we speak of the spirit of the age, Social speculation again, and
economic research as one branch of it, is both through its philosophic method
and through its doctrine under the influence of the sciences which in the order
of development precede the social, especially of the science of organic nature.
It is of the highest importance to bear in mind these several relations of
economic research both to external circumstance and to other spheres of
contemporary thought, because by keeping them in view we shall be led to form
less absolute and therefore juster estimates of the successive phases of
opinion. Instead of merely praising or blaming these according to the degrees of
their accordance with a predetermined standard of doctrine, we shall view them
as elements in an ordered series, to be studied mainly with respect to their
filiation, their opportuneness, and their influences. We shall not regard each
new step in this theoretic development as implying an unconditional negation of
earlier views, which often had a relative justification, resting, as they did,
on a real, though narrower, basis of experience, or assuming the existence of a
different social order. Nor shall we consider all the theoretic positions now
occupied as definitive; for the practical system of life which they tacitly
assume is itself susceptible of change, and destined, without doubt, more or
less to undergo it. Within the limits of a sketch like the present these
considerations cannot be fully worked out; but an effort will be made to keep
them in view, and to mark the relations here indicated wherever their influence
is specially important or interesting.
The particular situation and tendencies of the several thinkers whose names are
associated with economic doctrines have, of course, modified in a greater or
less degree the spirit or form of those doctrines. Their relation to special
predecessors, their native temperament, their early training, their religious
prepossessions and political partialities, have all had their effects. To these
we shall in some remarkable instances direct attention; but, in the main, they
are, for our present purpose, secondary and subordinate. The ensemble must
preponderate over the individual; and the constructors of theories must be
regarded as organs of a common intellectual and social movement.
The history of economic inquiry is most naturally divided into the three great
periods of (1) the ancient, (2) the mediaeval, and (3) the modern worlds. In the
two former, this branch of study could exist only in a rudimentary state. It is
evident that for any considerable development of social theory two conditions
must be fulfilled. First, the phenomena must have exhibited themselves on a
sufficiently extended scale to supply adequate matter for observation, and
afford a satisfactory basis for scientific generalisations; and secondly, whilst
the spectacle is thus provided, the spectator must have been trained for his
task, and armed with the appropriate aids and instruments of research, that is
to say, there must have been such a previous cultivation of the simpler sciences
as will have both furnished the necessary data of doctrine and prepared the
proper methods of investigation. Sociology requires to use for its purposes
theorems which belong to the domains of physics and biology, and which it must
borrow from their professors; and, on the logical side, the methods which it has
to employ -- deductive, observational, comparative -- must have been previously
shaped in the cultivation of mathematics and the study of the inorganic world or
of organisms less complex than the social. Hence it is plain that, though some
laws or tendencies ...
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