The Development of Economics

This book is the outcome of the author’s experience as a graduate student and as a teacher of graduate students for a period of forty years. That experience has strengthened an early conviction that for the training of an economist the historical approach to the subject is the best, and perhaps essential. In its development economics has passed through several stages, in each one of which the thinking of the past has been influenced and modified by the economic and social conditions of the period and by thinking in allied and sometimes quite remote fields. The significance, scope, and limitations of single doctrines and of systems of economic thought in any period, therefore, can be understood only in the light of their history.

In approaching the study of the subject from the historical point of view the student is confronted by a mass of literature, only a small portion of which is it possible for him to study or even cursorily to examine. How to make the proper selection and to grasp the significance of what he reads are his problems. He is aided in the process of selection by several good histories, but unfortunately these are adequate only for the exceptional person. In reading them the average student gets lost. In spite of classifications and variations in emphasis, the number of authors and books brought to his attention in these histories is so great that he becomes confused and is often unable to get the perspective necessary to enable him to concentrate upon the most significant and important for his purposes and to neglect or to subordinate the rest.

An aid in overcoming this difficulty is supplied by histories of doctrines, rather than of books and authors, but few, if any, of these are sufficiently comprehensive, and, on account of the necessity they involve of segregating one or more of an author’s theories from the context in which he placed them, they frequently leave incomplete and even distorted impressions.

In the present book another method of overcoming the student’s difficulties is used. It is that of grouping the topics to be studied around the development of the Classical Political Economy of England by considering first, the background of that development in the economic life and thought of the preceding period; second, the development of the Classical Political Economy itself; third, its early critics; and fourth, attempts to reconstruct the science in the post-classical, including the contemporary, period, and critics of these attempts. In each of these main subdivisions only typical and outstanding authors have been selected for treatment, others being either entirely omitted or discussed in their relations to the former. In this way, it is hoped, better perspective has been achieved, fuller and more complete discussions of the key authors and doctrines of the science have been presented than are to be found in the current histories, and the number of authors and doctrines discussed has been reduced to a compass within the grasp of the ordinary student during the period of time at his disposal. More attention and space than is customary have also been devoted to a discussion of the characteristic features of the economic life of the periods to which the chief stages in the development of the science belong.

The method of treatment has been, so far as possible, objective, the aim being accurately to present the thought of the writer under discussion rather than the author’s reaction to it. To this end, quotations have been freely used and critical comments employed chiefly for the purpose of emphasizing vital points. Where an omission of considerable length has been made between consecutive paragraphed quotations from the same work, as has often been advisable, closing quotation marks have been used preceding the omission.

The present form and content of the book are the result of years of class and individual discussions with hundreds of students now scattered all over the world, and its publication is due chiefly to the frequently expressed desire of many of them, especially those in academic positions, to have the subject-matter of these discussions in a form available for their own and their students’ use. The author’s thanks are due to these students for many helpful suggestions and criticisms.