History of Economic Analysis part 53 pot

taught Marx how not to go about his task and how to avoid the grossest
errors. Therefore, and also because Marx’s theoretical developments seem
to me to follow naturally from Ricardo’s formulations—given the
direction in which those developments were to aim—I do not think that
there is any cogent reason for challenging Engels’ repudiation of the idea
that Marx had ‘borrowed’ from Rodbertus.
To call Rodbertus a Ricardian is, of course, to limit the range of his originality. In
addition, there is W.Thompson’s priority—such as it is—for any sort of exploitation
theory, and Owen’s for Rodbertus’ labor notes (currency).
4
But neither amounts to much.
For his own convenience, the reader should keep in mind the following three points that I
mention here by anticipation as specifically characteristic of the caliber of Rodbertus’
theorizing (all of which have found admirers, however): (I) his thoroughly untenable
theory of rent;
5
(II) his factually and theoretically equally indefensible theory that the
relative share of labor in the national dividend tends to fall in the course of capitalist
development; and (III) his underconsumption theory of crises that is based upon the
proposition that overproduction must periodically result from labor’s inability to buy
back a sufficient amount of its product owing to (II)—a type of underconsumption theory
that should be, but unfortunately is not, beneath discussion. Sismondi, who has some
passages that seem to point in the same direction, actually did much better than that.
Rodbertus’ most important works are: Zur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirthschaftlichen
Zustände (1842); Sociale Briefe an von Kirchmann (1850–51; English trans. as
Overproduction and Crises, 1898; 2nd ed., 1908); Zur Erklärung und Abhülfe der
heutigen Creditnoth des Grundbesitzes (1868–9). Other writings that are of interest to us,
including letters that contain some important clarification, have been posthumously
published from time to time. There is a considerable Rodbertus literature, mostly
German. I mention only H.Dietzel’s Karl Rodbertus (1886–8), which makes up by
analytic competence what, owing to its date, it lacks in information. It was A.Wagner’s

championship that brought Rodbertus to the fore in the last two decades of the nineteenth
century.
Reasons will be offered, as we go along, for believing that it is in the interest of a realistic
picture of developments in our field to confine the concept, Historical School of
Economics, to the age and to the group of Gustav von Schmoller (see below, Part IV, ch.
4). This implies that it is not good practice to speak of an Older Historical School, a term
that has been introduced, chiefly for use in the polemic against Schmoller’s ‘historism,’
to denote a group of writers who, while appreciating the importance of historical
research, displayed no hostility toward ‘theory.’ I maintain that such a position does not
constitute a distinctive characteristic and that the economists who are usually mentioned
in this connection do not, in any useful sense, form a group, let alone a school. But we
must notice these economists themselves: Hildebrand, Knies, and Roscher. The first,
6
a
man of restless activity
4
With both Owen and Rodbertus, and in essentially the same manner, units of labor are not merely
what units of gold are in a gold currency, but the mechanism of this labor money also serves to
‘correct’ values.
History of economic analysis 482
5
Meaning now rent of land in the usual sense and not in Rodbertus’ sense, in which rent means
profits plus interest plus rent of land.
6
Bruno Hildebrand’s (1812–78) chief work, Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft
(1848; new ed. by Gehrig, 1922), displays hostility to the concept of natural law (in the sense that
makes economic laws epistemologically analogous to physical laws); it places emphasis upon the
moral-science character of economics (his term was Kulturwissenschaft as opposed to physics,
Naturwissenschaft) and on other features that recur in the programmatic pronouncements of the
Schmoller school and also in Windelband’s and Rickert’s methodologies of the social sciences. In

addition, he did historical research. But his own programmatic pronouncement at the head of the
first number of the Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, which he founded in 1862, was
remarkable for catholicity and obviously not intended to start or to espouse a distinct
methodological party. In any case, if we do wish to label him a historical economist, he should be
called a forerunner of the Schmoller school rather than a member of that triumvirate that does not
form any real unit at all.
and considerable influence, comes nearest to having been a historical economist in the
later and genuine acceptance of the term. Knies, one of the most significant figures of
German economics, will be mentioned in our survey of the next period, to which his main
work belongs. This work was in the field of economic theory, however, and his only title
to a place in the older historical school rests upon a methodological professio fidei, which
is very interesting as such but, considering his own practice, does not mean very much. It
belongs in the period under discussion and will be noticed below (ch. 5, sec. 2b).
Roscher,
7
who taught at the University of Leipzig for forty-six years, added to the
influence which this implies the influence of many works that never fell below a highly
respectable level: honest scholarship and sound common sense is written all over them,
and the sympathetic understanding that his gentle and highly cultivated mind extended to
all types of scientific effort helped to make them perhaps more useful to many
generations of students than would have been more original productions. Marx poked
insipid fun at him. There were those to whom he looked like an obstacle to advance. On
the whole, however, there is hardly another economist of that period who enjoyed so
nearly universal respect inside and outside of Germany. With complimentary intention,
writers who found it difficult to credit him with original results have tried to find
something original in his method or approach. This is how he got into the position of
being considered either one of the ‘founders’ of a historical school in general or a leader
of the so-called ‘older’ historical school. He invited this by speaking frequently of his
historical method or standpoint. But we shall see later that there is not much in this and
that he should be classified’ so far as his analytic apparatus is concerned, as a very

meritorious follower of the English ‘classics,’ though a follower who happened to have a
particularly strong taste for historical illustration.
7
W.G.F.Roscher’s (1817–94) indefatigable industry turned out a large number of
publications, of which we have already mentioned Zur Geschichte der englischen
Volkswirthschaftslehre im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert (1851–2) and
Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutschland (1874), monuments of
scholarship. Neglecting all other items of an impressive list, among them two
additional contributions of his to the history of economics and several studies in
economic history, I shall mention only his extremely successful System der
Volkswirthschaft published in five volumes: Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie
Review of the troops 483
(1854; a 26th ed. appeared as late as 1922; English trans. 1878);
Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues…(1859; 14th ed., 1912); Nationalökonomik
des Handels und Gewerbfleisses (1881; 8th ed., 1913–17); System der
Finanzwissenschaft (1886; 5th ed., 1901); and System der Armenpflege und
Armenpolitik (1894; 3rd ed., 1906).
I think the discussion above blocks out all the salient features of the
scenery that it is necessary to keep in mind for our purpose.
Incompleteness is essential in a venture of this kind and should need no
excuse. But all the same it seems desirable to atone for the absence of
three names that some readers may miss. I have already mentioned Lorenz
von Stein, in connection with the economic interpretation of history, and
should perhaps have included him in this sketch because his most
important works were all first published within the period. I have
transferred him to the next, however, since his influence was to increase
considerably in the 1870’s and 1880’s. A similar reason motivated my
transferring Albert Schäffle. But I am going to use this opportunity to
comment briefly on Dühring who does not fit in anywhere else.
Eugen K.Dühring (1833–1921) had to abandon a lawyer’s career

owing to failure of eyesight quickly followed by complete blindness, and
thereupon embarked, on the one hand, upon an academic career and, on
the other hand, upon an intellectual effort that resulted in the conquest of a
vast domain extending from mathematics, mechanics, and theoretical
physics in general, to ethnology, economics, and philosophy. The truly
admirable—in fact almost unbelievable—feat was, however, that in
several stretches of that vast domain he attained the mastery requisite for
original achievement. In particular, he published a brilliant history of
mechanics (Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Principien der
Mechanik, 1873), which, when awarded an academic prize, drew from the
judges the curious comment that the level of the work was far above what
would have been necessary to win the prize; and, more important, it was
appreciatively noticed by Ernst Mach (see preface to first edition of the
latter’s Mechanics). In the history of the anti-metaphysical and positivist
currents of thought, moreover, he cannot fail to retain a prominent place.
In another sphere of thought—that philosophy of life which corresponds
to the earliest meaning of the term philosophy—he developed an attitude
or system which we may like or not, but which is both interesting and
original (he called it ‘personalism’). And there is his social philosophy—
or system of social reform—that is entitled to the same comment (he
called it ‘societary’; it has some affinity with that of Rodbertus). The
reasons why this significant thinker should have met with little except
rebuffs are to be found mainly in a temperament that was at the same time
generous and aggressive and that, by ferocious attacks, made enemies of
practically all the individuals and groups he noticed at all. He experienced
a revival, however, in the 1920’s. All this had to be said to make it quite
clear that any disrespectful attitude toward him is entirely out of place,
and also to protect what follows from misunderstanding.
History of economic analysis 484
In the field of economic sociology he has indeed a considerable performance to his credit,

namely, the anti-Marxist theory—which is partly tenable—that many of the property
relations of the capitalist era have resulted not from the economic logic of capitalism, but
from an extra-economic sequence of political causation. But in no other respect, since we
exclude political thought and policy recommendations, is there, for us, positive
contribution to report. He was—strange to say, considering his achievement in
mechanics—a bad technician. He had no awareness of the analytic weaknesses of such an
argument as that capitalist property (for institutional reasons) keeps the working class at a
level of minimum of existence and deprives it of the fruits of technological improvement
(wherefore the state must step in to assure labor of its appro-priate share—again an
affinity with Rodbertus). He had an unbounded enthusiasm for Carey and went into
paroxysms of rage about Bastiat’s plagiarism; but he displayed no grasp of either the
strong or the weak points in Carey’s system. And since this is what matters to us, we
shall have no occasion to mention him again. Of Dühring’s works the following are in
our field: Carey’s Umwälzung der Volkswirtschaftslehre und Socialwissenschaft (1865);
Capital und Arbeit…(1865); Kritische Grundleg-ung der Volkswirtschaftslehre (1866);
Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus (1871);
Cursus…(1873). See E.Laskine, ‘Les Doctrines économiques et sociales d’Eugène
Dühring,’ Revue d’histoire des doctrines économiques et sociales (1912) and G.Albrecht,
Eugen Dühring…(1927).
6. ITALY
The political and administrative structure of every nation reflects itself in the organization
of its scientific work. Thus, like everything else, scientific work was highly centralized in
France. In England, quite different conditions produced a similar result: we find in every
field, including economics, a relatively small and closely knit group within which severe
selection operated to reduce to a few the names of real significance. Such structures are
easy to describe. German economics, being much more decentralized, presented greater
difficulties. Italian economics was still more decentralized. And I confess my inability to
draw, in the available space, any satisfactory picture at all. All that can be said in general
about the economic research, which was done during this period in the various centers of
national life, is that it was not on the same level with the achievements of either the

earlier times of Beccaria and Verri or the later times of Pantaleoni and Pareto. This shows
in many ways, particularly in the dominating strength of foreign influence. The leads
given by A.Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and Say, whether accepted or subject to adverse
criticism, were the starting points and material for work that was often able but primarily
derivative. Hence also the characteristic interest both in Italian works of the past (the fifty
the same story—of the relative weakness of the scientific performances of strong men.
2

Two examples of


Review of the troops 485
volumes of Custodi’s collection of the Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica
appeared 1803–16)
1
and in the translation of foreign works (the 1st and 2nd series of the
Biblioteca dell’Economista appeared, 1850–68). This is all the more remarkable because
examination of available facts reveals plenty of ability in the personnel of Italian
economics. By way of illustration, I mention two men of conspicuous brilliance, Rossi
and Scialoja, whose careers also point to the cause—we know it already and it is always
relative weakness of performance in economics that were simply due to width of range
are Valeriani and Romagnosi.
3

More concentrated effort produced significant performance in the cases of Gioja and
Fuoco in the earlier and of Messedaglia in the later part of the period. Gioja’s
4
work may
be described best as an attempt to rewrite the Wealth of Nations from the standpoint of
the united Italy he visualized. Pearls are hidden in an unprofitable heap of rubbish—that

is partly redeemed, however, by the statistical work it contains. It is easier to do justice to
Fuoco.
5
He was a theorist of note who does not merit oblivion. In some pieces, for
example the one on the use of the concept of limits in economics, he displayed
considerable originality. His conception of economic equilibrium in some respects
marked progress beyond Say’s. He is regularly mentioned in Italian histories—mainly,
however, in connection with his preoccupation with the theory of rent—but seems to
have exerted no influence at all. This was different with Messedaglia.
6
I have chosen him
for mention because of the
1
In Spain we find the same phenomenon; Juan Sempere y Guarinos’ Biblioteca española
economico-politica was published 1801–21.
2
I wish I could draw a picture of Pellegrino Rossi (1787–1848), whose failures in his many
political activities reveal more ability than do the successes of other people. This Italian, who
became a Swiss constitutional reformer and professor of Roman history, then a professor of
economics and constitutional law in Paris and a Peer of France, then French ambassador to Rome,
and then again Papal prime minister, produced among other things a Cours d’économie politique
(1840–54; the 3rd and 4th vols. were published posthumously) that merited its success but does not
merit any further mention in a history of analysis. All the vast cultural horizons, all the practical
insights that show throughout, do not alter the fact that, analytically, it was diluted Ricardianism
plus a little Say. Antonio Scialoja (1817–77) wrote a nondescript I principii della economia sociale
(1840)—that was, however, very well written and correspondingly successful—and not much else.
But he was 23 when this text came out! What could a man have done who was able to accomplish
such a feat in the absence of politics, public service, and so on, all interspersed with imprisonment,
exile, cabinet office.
3

L.M.Valeriani (1758–1828) was something of a polyhistor and much admired in his time and
country. The little steam he reserved for economics was put to good use, however, in his theory of
prices (Del prezzo delle cose tutte mercantili, 1806), which could have taught Senior and Mill how
to handle supply and demand functions. Italian historiography credits him (and Scialoja) with
having used mathematics. But his (and Scialoja’s) merit in this respect hardly goes much beyond
the perception of a great possibility. Other Italians perceived this possibility, e.g. Fuoco.
G.D.Romagnosi’s (1761–1835) name survives in the history of law and criminology. He was also a
philosopher and something of a mathematician and physicist. But his economic philosophies, which
were of an anti-étatiste but equalitarian nature, are not worth our while—they may be described as
the foothills of Italian utilitarianism.
4
Melchiorre Gioja (1767–1829). Opere principali (all I know) were posthumously edited, 1838–
40.
History of economic analysis 486
5
Francesco Fuoco (1777–1841), Saggi economici (1825–7) and Introduzione… dell’economia
industriale (1829). Another interesting piece of work that holds a position in the long controversy
on the productivity of credit, Magia del credito svelata, was published in 1824, in pursuance of a
curious business transaction by Welz, who posed as the author.
6
Angelo Messedaglia (1820–1901) was professor of law and later on of economics and statistics in
Padua and Rome. His quiet professorial life, which suffered interruption by political activity for a
brief period only, had its share in his achievement as had his bent for patient research. But the
divine spark was not lacking. He affords an excellent example for the study of the particular
combination of gifts, tastes, and circumstances that make for solid scientific success and are
adequate for reaching any ranks but the
strategic position he holds in the history of Italian economics and statistics. Maffeo
Pantaleoni expressed, I believe, the opinion of a large majority of the Italian profession
when he wrote that Messedaglia was one of the three men—the other two being Cossa
and Ferrara—whose teaching formed ‘all’ (?) Italian economists of the subsequent period

in which Italian economics was again to shine so brightly. This solid achievement rests
on no one of his individual performances taken by itself, though most of them are of a
high order of scholarship, for example, his monographs on public loans, population—
only those two belong to the period—statistical theory, and money. More than by their
individual contributions to their subjects, they influenced as messages of the spirit of
scholarship and as examples of research that refuses to serve the day. We add Nazzani for
the same reason that justifies inclusion of Cairnes with the English economists of the
period—he was perhaps the most eminent Italian exponent of ‘classic’ theory and his
chief contributions belong here in spite of their dates.
7

Besides being woefully incomplete,
8
this sketch suffers also from the impossibility of
giving due weight to the factual work done by Italian economists, particularly on
agricultural problems including problems of ownership and tenancy, which would affect
our impression considerably. But little can be done about this. Of texts, I shall mention,
besides Scialoja’s, also Boccardo’s and the one I personally like best, de Cesare’s.
9
The
most conspicuous figure of Italian economics of that period and perhaps for twenty years
beyond it, Ferrara, I left to the last. He was a great leader. He formed a school of his own.
But affection and admiration for him has crystallized so as to lend to his figure enlarged
dimensions.
highest. Any work of reference will supply the reader with a list of his
publications, a few of which will be mentioned later on.
7
Emilio Nazzani (1832–1904), Sulla rendita fondiaria (1872), republished with
three other essays (wages, profit, English ‘classics’) in one volume, 1881.
8

One of the many lacunae may be filled by mentioning the history of Italian
economics, Storia della economia pubblica in Italia (1829), by Conte Pecchio,
whom McCulloch—of all men—reproached for national bias!
9
G.Boccardo (1829–1904), Trattato teorico-pratico di economia politica (1853),
the answer to the student’s prayer before exams. Another Millian treatise. Carlo de
Cesare’s (1824–82) Manuale di economia pubblica (1862), though also ‘classic’
fundamentally, was something more than that, much broader and deeper than
Boccardo’s. It was the work of an eminent man whose bibliography includes many
an excellent report on many a thorny question—of one of those men who are
invaluable servants to their nations, indeed so entirely given to this service that
knowledge would never advance by a yard if there were not other mental types.
Review of the troops 487
Francesco Ferrara (1810–1900) was primarily a scholar and teacher. But
he was also a politician who played his role in the formation of a united
Italy and in the task of organizing the new national state. I mention those
activities and also his passionate interest in the issues of economic policy
for two reasons. First, they explain why, like Ricardo, he speaks to us
from a pedestal that did not consist of scientific achievement alone:
Italians may well revere the great economist as one of the founding fathers
of their state. Second, those activities and his attitudes in discussion of
practical issues are very revelatory of his character: we behold a man of
the most punctilious honor and conscience, impervious to any
temptation—in environments that offered many—a single-minded lover
of his nation, uncompromising to a fault; but we also behold a doctrinaire
of almost unbelievable inflexibility. Economically and politically he was
an ultra-liberal in the sense defined in the second chapter of this Part. And
the slightest deviation from this ultra-liberalism was anathema to him. In
this respect, like many liberals, he was tyrannically intolerant—a godsend
for the opponent who knows how to make use of this trait. He never

seems to have so much as tried to understand any standpoint but his own.
Sozialpolitik simply roused his wrath. This is relevant for us because as he
was in politics, so he was in science. He entertained an uncritical
confidence in the powers of economic theory: hence the historical school,
also, simply roused his wrath. Such leadership evidently has its dangers.
But we must not forget its merits. Strength of conviction convinces. And
it can hardly avoid one-sidedness and narrowness. Ferrara carried the flag
of economic theory over an arid stretch of ground, keeping it alive,
inculcating interest in it as only ardor can, stimulating his audiences,
preparing the ground for better things to come. This was his achievement
and it was great indeed. But his own exploits in the realm of theoretical
analysis were, all the compliments of later writers and all efforts at
favorable interpretation notwithstanding, distinctly unsuccessful. He saw
clearly enough that economic phenomena and problems form a coherent
set and that it is the theory of value which unifies them. But as the
principle of this theory of value he adopted Cost of Reproduction in terms
of labor, a principle that can be made general only by the most desperate
twists of logic and, in any case, tells us little more than the old cost-of-
production principle does if properly stated. There would be no point in
singling out for criticism examples of impossible pieces of reasoning. Let
us rather admire the strategist who won victories with such defective
equipment and add that both his learned discussions of older authors and
his pieces on banks, government fiat money, and other subjects contain
many valuable things. His most important work, the Esame storico-critico
di economisti e dottrine economiche del secolo XVIII e prima metà del
XIX (1889–90) has been mentioned above. For a much more favorable
appraisal, see Professor G.H.Bousquet’s brilliant sketch, ‘Un grand
économiste Italien, Francesco Ferrara,’ Revue d’histoire économique et
sociale, vol. XIV, 1926, and also the introduction and notes to Ferrara’s
History of economic analysis 488

Oeuvres économiques choisies (ed. by G.H.Bousquet and J.Crisafulli,
1938).
7. UNITED STATES
For the preceding period, we found that the small economic literature of the United States
did not quite deserve the low opinion that a majority of American economists seem to
entertain about it. For the period under survey, however, the opinion that Dunbar
expressed in 1876, namely, that American literature had contributed ‘nothing towards
developing the theory of political economy’
1
has not been invalidated by the information
made available by more recent research. It is indeed not true if we take account of
problems raised, suggestions made, and factual work done, but it is true if we emphasize
the word theory. Since this is the opinion prevailing in the profession, our account can be
brief. Before presenting it, I wish to ask the question why that should have been so.
Minds that are unfamiliar with the sociology of scientific effort take it for granted that
analysis follows the practical problem or, to put it differently, that it is induced by the
needs of life. But in this case there were plenty of practical problems and they were
eagerly discussed, sometimes with a degree of passion that was quite out of proportion to
their importance. Nevertheless, we find hardly more than traces of an impulse to develop
analytic tools for dealing with them. Moreover, there was plenty of demand for economic
teaching—the quantity demanded was much greater than was the supply of competent
teachers—which called forth courses and textbooks in response. One would think that
giving a course or writing a textbook would induce a man to do at least a little thinking
for himself, and that it would be difficult for a man to do either without asking himself
when reviewing his derivative material: ‘Could I not do better than this?’ But evidently
this is not so: the demand for courses and textbooks produced courses and textbooks and
not much else. Does this not show that there is something to one of the theses of this
book, namely, that need is not the necessary and sufficient condition
1
C.F.Dunbar (1830–1900), ‘Economic Science in America, 1776–1876,’ North American Review,

1876, reprinted in his Economic Essays (1904). For more information that I am going to present,
the reader is referred to E.R.A.Seligman, ‘Economics in the United States,’ two articles that are
combined into a chapter of his Essays in Economics (1925); F.A.Fetter, ‘The Early History of
Political Economy in the United States,’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1943.
Among other American publications on the subject, I wish to mention particularly J.R.Turner, The
Ricardian Rent Theory in Early American Economics (1921); and the useful bibliographies in
M.J.L.O’Connor, Origins of Academic Economics in the United States (1944). The most important
non-American contribution seems to me to be E.Teilhac, Pioneers of American Economic Thought
in the Nineteenth Century (trans. from the French by E.A.J.Johnson, 1936), a scholarly book that I
feel all the more bound to recommend because its approach so completely differs from mine. [Had
J.A.S. completed his History, he would have added Joseph H.Dorfman’s Economic Mind in
American Civilization, of which the first two vols. (1946) cover the period 1606–1865, and the
third vol. (1949) the period 1865–1918.]

Review of the troops 489
of analytic advance and that demand for teaching produces teaching and not necessarily
scientific achievement? The solution of the riddle seems simple, however. We have it as
soon as we observe that absence of creative research was not peculiar to American
economics of that period. We find the same state of things elsewhere, for example, in the
fields of mathematics and theoretical physics where there is nothing to record until we
reach the lonely peak that was Willard Gibbs—although there was no lack of
technological problems, some of which, moreover, were solved with striking success.
This suggests a common cause, and I do not see how we can avoid finding it in the
conditions of the country and the aptitudes of her men: the task of exploiting the
possibilities of the natural environment—which, given the social structure, presented
itself in the form of unparalleled opportunities for business enterprise—both absorbed the
creative talent of the country and drew to it talent of this type. Circles that did cultivate
intellect and scholarship were quantitatively unimportant and sterile in scientific
initiative. This, I believe, agrees with what Dunbar meant to convey, although he
expressed himself in a manner that invites objection.

2

But I have emphasized the word theory, and what I meant by it was analytic apparatus.
No such emphasis is needed in the cases of any of the textbooks I know, for they were
commonplace, and worse, in any and every respect. Teaching fed mainly on McCulloch
and Say, and where home-grown texts were used, it was McCulloch and Say again,
except for some contributions of the Carey school.
3
But as regards the most significant
figure in that period’s
2
Professor F.A.Fetter (op. cit., preceding footnote) has in fact objected to an explanation by
‘environment’ (rightly, of course, because the word itself explains nothing) and replaced
‘environment’ by two other factors: ‘false authority’ (of the English ‘classics’) and interested
partisanship ‘which blocks the path to disinterested scientific effort.’ But the first of these factors
needs to be explained in turn: for the hold of authority, false or not, is not a matter of course; the
creative mind does not submit to authority; and, following this line, we are led back to the
environment that either does not contain scientific talent or else absorbs it into other pursuits. As
regards the partisan spirit, it was surely not absent in England, where economic analysis did
flourish all the same. Nor does it in itself interfere with scientific effort. Finally, with great respect
for Professor Fetter’s high authority, I beg leave to remark that professors are not exempt from bias
and that I sense some in the attitude of many excellent men to the nationalist school: surely, another
interpretation may be put on the protectionist views of American economists of that and later times
than subservience to either pecuniary interests or prejudice.
3
On Say’s success in the United States and also on his influence upon Carey, see Teilhac, op. cit.;
the Prinsep translation of Say’s Traité was first published in 1821. An American edition of
McCulloch was published by J.McVickar, the first incumbent of the chair of political economy at
Columbia. Destutt de Tracy was introduced to the American public, by no less a personage than
Jefferson, in 1817. Of the homegrown products, the Rev. Francis Wayland’s Elements of Political

Economy (1837) was, I believe, the most successful. Having heard and read a number of scathing
comments about it, I experienced something like agreeable surprise when I read it.



History of economic analysis 490
American economics, Carey,
4
that restrictive emphasis upon theory is very much needed.
For he lacked creativeness only in that respect. And his case points an interesting moral
about what technical deficiency may do to a man’s reputation in the long run:
5
Carey’s
name has no doubt suffered much more from political animosity than from that
deficiency; but nobody could have treated him with contempt had he stated his case with
tolerable competence.
Carey’s idea of the fundamental unity of all science—a sort of generalized Comtism—
was not the idea of a man whose intellectual life is enclosed by tariff walls. The man who
propounded once more the fundamental sameness of scientific law in all departments of
knowledge was no doubt wrong; but there was an element of greatness in his errors. And
the man who could conceive of the United States as a world unto itself, with all this
implies economically, morally, culturally, had no doubt the gift of grand vision in the
same sense as had List. In the light of this vision, his protectionism and his ‘harmony’ of
agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests—his conception of a ‘balanced’
economy—acquire a new significance and one that is completely overlooked by all those
who saw nothing in him but a mouthpiece of the business class. We need not like that
protectionism and we need not like Carey’s whole vision. In particular, we may feel that
the United States would be a happier place and would have attained a higher cultural
level by now if a larger part of the country’s energies had gone into other than business
pursuits and if, in consequence, her industrial development had been slower. This,

however, is a matter of personal evaluation and does not excuse us from recognizing that
Carey’s was a great vision and that, in most respects, this vision expressed adequately
both the situation and the spirit of the country. Moreover, we cannot excuse ourselves
from recognizing that this vision
4
For a list of his more important followers, see F.A.Fetter, op. cit. p. 56n. They—and presumably
others—formed a school in our sense and also had personal contact with the Master, which was
how they referred to him. The school was called and also called itself ‘nationalist,’ but it should be
observed that this term entirely lacked the connotation of aggressiveness it has today.
5
Henry C.Carey’s (1793–1879) economic opinions were in part conditioned by those of his father,
Mathew, who already felt himself to be the leader of a ‘nationalist school.’ Of the son’s works,
those that are most important for us are: Essay on the Rate of Wages…(1835; this first economic
piece of his already displays his characteristic weakness on the side of analysis); Principles of
Political Economy (1837–40); The Past, the Present, and the Future (1848); The Harmony of
Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial (1851); Principles of Social Science
(1858–9); and Unity of Law (1872). This list neglects his writings on money and credit and several
other things. The next to the last item is the one read and suffices for those who do not wish to
make a thorough-going study of Carey. We need not go into the Carey literature beyond
mentioning again his German admirer, Dühring. J.S.Mill described his Principles of Social Science
as the ‘worst book on political economy I ever toiled through’ (G.O’Brien, ‘J.S.Mill and
J.E.Cairnes,’ Economica, November 1943, p. 274) and said that he never met with ‘such an
apparatus of facts and reasonings in which the facts were so untrustworthy and the interpretations
of facts so perverse and absurd’ (ibid. p. 280).


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