Recent Phases Of Thought In Political Economy

Author : mile De Laveleye
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781495418228
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (182 download)

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Download or read book New Tendencies of Political Economy written by mile De Laveleye and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-02-02 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpts from the TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE: THE recent publication of an American translation of Roscher's Principles of Political Economy reminded me of Professor de Laveleye's very instructive article on the New Tendencies of Political Economy and of Socialism, which appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes, of July 15, 1876. I had often thought of publishing a translation of this article, but the time did not seem to me to have arrived for awakening a proper interest in the subject in this country. The course which public discussions have taken within the last year, however, and notably the resumption of specie payments, have brought financial and economical questions to the front, and give promise of a more intelligent consideration of them than at any recent period. Coincident with this is the revival of the protectionist and free-trade war in Europe, a war which has been actively begun in Germany, Austria, France and Italy, and the mutterings of which have not been unheard even in Great Britain. The distressed condition of trade in all of these countries and the new political systems which are being consolidated in Germany, France, and Italy, have made the discussion of economic principles and of systems of fiscal administration more general and more vital than perhaps ever before. Indissolubly mixed up with them is the social question in its various aspects. As M. de Laveleye justly observes, in both of the papers now first offered to American readers, political economy seems to have passed through its first stage—that which gives instruction as to the accumulation of national wealth—and to have reached the far more important question of its distribution among the several classes which participate in creating it. The respective claims of capital and labor present to-day the most difficult and anxious social problem. Political economy concerns itself with this problem, both because it calls in question the soundness of its past conclusions respecting the creation of wealth, and because it lies at the very bottom of its future conclusions as to an equitable distribution. The "orthodox" political economy, as it is styled by M. de Laveleye, means the doctrines of the Manchester school of free traders, as generally held in England for the last quarter of a century; doctrines which are as firmly established at Oxford and Cambridge and in the House of Commons, as in Yorkshire or Lancashire. There have been some dissenters, however, like Cliffe Leslie and Thornton, who have called down the scoffings, if not the anathemas, of the orthodox camp…. ….No man who looks at the history of past American legislation on the subject of the tariff, in a calm and philosophic spirit, can fail to admit that it is full of ignorance, of vacillation and of mistakes. We might have been abreast of England in opening our markets freely to the world, if our tariff policy had been consistent and progressive. If the English House of Commons has legislated for mankind rather than for man, the American Congress has legislated for man rather than for mankind. In other words, the Committee of Ways and Means has always been the center of personal and individual and local interests, instead of consulting and representing the average interests of American citizens—occupying a great continent with different productions and different wants. I do not say that the harmonizing of those interests is not at all times difficult, but it does seem to me that if the fiscal policy of the country were put beyond the pale of party, as completely as has been done in Great Britain since the repeal of the Corn Laws, a system might be eliminated which should respect traditions, conciliate labor and make rapid strides in the direction of commercial freedom. In this as in most public questions the truth lies between the extremes—"Medio tutissimus ibis."