The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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1.D. 1689 —1776. without direct re- ference to power, he wreated Economic Science. PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM seople,” the second was “to supply the State or common- wealth, with a revenue sufficient for the public services.” He simply discussed the subject of wealth; its bearing on the condition of the State appeared an after-thought. He solated the connection of National Wealth and pub it forward as the subject matter of his treatise; and in this way he may be said to have brought into clear light the principles which underlay Parliamentary Colbertism. Those who developed this system had concerned themselves about increasing -the mass of national wealth of any and every tind, as the indirect means of securing national power. \dam Smith gave clearness to the notions which were im- lied in their practice. It was his main achievement to reat national wealth as separable from other elements in political life, and in this way he defined the scope of the scientific study of Economics? [t thus came about that he cut away the political grounds which had been commonly urged for interfering with the ordinary course of business. In former times it had been possible to insist that some kinds of wealth were more important for the promotion of national power than others. and that it was the work of the statesman to play 104, + Wealth of Nations, 1V., introduction, p. 173. 1 By isolating wealth as a subject for study he introduced an immense simpli- tcation. The examination of economic phenomena became more definite; and ‘ust because Adam Smith achieved this result his work rendered it possible to ask 1ew questions, and so to make a real advance in every direction of social study. Not till we isolate wealth and examine how it is procured and how it may be used, san we really set about enquiring how material goods may be made to subserve the highest ends of human life. National rivalries and national power are but mean things after all; but till the study of wealth was dissociated from these lower aims, it was hardly possible to investigate empirically how we could make the most of the resources of the world as a whole, and how material goods might be best applied for the service of man. It is owing to Adam Smith, and the manner in which he severed Economics from Politics, that we can raise and liscuss, even if we cannot solve, such problems to-day. Similarly, we find the clearest testimony to his greatness in the new form which the old enquiries assumed. He severed economic science from politics; he dealt with it as concerned with physical objects and natural laws. To his English predecessors it had been a department of politics or morals ; while many of his English successors recognised that in his hands it had become more analogous to physics, and delighted to treat it by the methods of mechanical science. ‘Whether sonsciously or unconsciously, he gave the turn to economic problems which has arought about the development of modern economic theory.

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