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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740 LAISSEZ FAIRE A.D. 1776 —1850. of the country, were held up to scorn for their selfishness, The economic science of the day supplied admirable weapons for mutual recrimination, and helped to embitter the relations of class with class; but the general policy which it approved was that of letting things drift, and the House of Commons was nervously afraid of taking any step which, in the opinion of economic experts, might in any way injure the trade of our merchants and manufacturers. This indisposition to act was specially noticeable in re- gard to matters which affected the well-being of the working classes. The masters at the beginning of last century do not appear to have been unscrupulous advocates of their own interests; some of them were prepared to accept the legis- The eq \Btive interference which was demanded by the hands. The Economists thoroughgoing support of the capitalist position was under- taken by economic experts, and the doctrines they propounded led men to think that the sufferings of the poor were not only their misfortune but their fault, and that to try to aid them was foolish and mischievous. This was the impression produced on public opinion by the theory of the Wages Fund and the teaching of Malthus in regard to population. The Classical Economists were apparently unaware that in their studies of particular problems they were necessarily examining the phenomena in a form which was determined by the conditions and circumstances of their own time. Their analysis was acute and of permanent value; but in attempting to give the results they reached a scientific character, the economists were occasionally guilty of hasty pewsralised generalisation. Political Economy co-ordinates recent ex- from the . y x special con- Perience and lays down the ‘law!’ as to what will happen so titions of Jong as social and physical conditions remain unchanged; day but social and physical conditions are always changing, and throwing the formulae of the economist out of date. The positive doctrines of the classical economists were received with exaggerated deference in their own day as if they had enunciated maxims which hold good for all time; a re- action has since set in, and their teaching has been unduly increased class bitterness. 1 On the confusion consequent on the use of this term in Economics, see Cunningham, 4 Plea for Pure Theory, in Economic Review, 11. 37, 41

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