Political Economy

2014 ◽  
pp. 141-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Blake
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Victorian Studies ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Economic Criticism ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
David Ricardo ◽  
Liberal Imperialism

Victorian studies has long attended to money matters in literature, while on the subject of money it has long wrung its hands. We see now a ‘new economic criticism’ that is more tolerant or even capitalist-friendly. Appreciation of Adam Smith, founding expositor of political economy, is growing. More reluctance and distaste remain as concerns Thomas Malthus. Bias and neglect continue concerning Jeremy Bentham, their utilitarian ally. J. S. Mill as political economist is becoming better known, as is David Ricardo, with more needed on their utilitarian ties. Expanded attention to economic theory in relation to concrete practice will expand understanding of the ‘political’ in political economy, part and parcel of liberalism while also, paradoxically, of ‘liberal imperialism’. Reviewing political-economic principles that set themes of new economic criticism, this essay connects theory to historical specifics and assesses what has and can be done to place Victorian literature in this grand-scale context.

Bleak House, Political Economy, Victorian Studies

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Blake
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Victorian Studies ◽  
Know How ◽  
Bleak House ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
Critical Heritage

Dickens is not known as a political economist. He is the critic of workhouse abuses (made topical by Benthamite Poor Law reform) in Oliver Twist and the caricaturist of the father of Adam Smith and Malthus Gradgrind in Hard Times. Students of Victorian literature familiarly take Hard Times as F. R. Leavis does as a condemnation of “The World of Bentham,” of utilitarianism, philosophic radicalism, political economy. It is what we expect when Dickens, The Critical Heritage gives us John Stuart Mill complaining about Bleak House and that “creature” Dickens for a portrait of Mrs. Jellyby that he finds antifeminist (to Harriet Taylor, March 20, 1854, qtd. in Collins, 297–98). But consider: in Bleak House there is a passage where Mr. Skimpole declares his family to be “all wrong in point of political economy” (454). His “Beauty daughter” marries young, takes a husband who is another child; they are improvident, have two children, bring them home to Skimpole's, as he expects his other daughters to do as well, though they none of them know how they will get on. Skimpole is exposed in the course of the novel as one of its worst characters. For a bribe and to save himself from infection he turns the smallpox-stricken Jo out into the night. He cadges loans from those who can't afford to make them. He encourages Richard in his fatal false hopes of a Chancery settlement for a payback to himself for helping the lawyer Mr. Vholes to a client. Esther Summerson ultimately condemns him, and Mr. Jarndyce breaks with him. If Skimpole is all wrong in point of political economy, can there be something all right with political economy for Dickens?

The Idea of a Meaningful Synthesis of Marxist and Non-Marxist Systems of Political Economy as a Mirror of Intellectual Turmoil (About V.T. Ryazanov’s Book «Modern Political Economy: Prospects of Neo-Marxist Synthesis»)

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-98
Author(s):  
A.B. Lyubinin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Commodity Production ◽  
Subjective Assessments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Political Economic

Review of the monograph indicated in the subtitle V.T. Ryazanov. The reviewer is critical of the position of the author of the book, believing that it is possible and even necessary (to increase the effectiveness of General economic theory and bring it closer to practice) substantial (and not just formal-conventional) synthesis of the Marxist system of political economy with its non-Marxist systems. The article emphasizes the difference between the subject and the method of the classical, including Marxist, school of political economy with its characteristic objective perception of the subject from the neoclassical school with its reduction of objective reality to subjective assessments; this excludes their meaningful synthesis as part of a single «modern political economy». V.T. Ryazanov’s interpretation of commodity production in the economic system of «Capital» of K. Marx as a purely mental abstraction, in fact — a fiction, myth is also counter-argued. On the issue of identification of the discipline «national economy», the reviewer, unlike the author of the book, takes the position that it is a concrete economic science that does not have a political economic status.

The Proper Context of Business

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-66
Author(s):  
James R. Otteson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Proper Context

Chapter 2 investigates the explanation Adam Smith gave in his famous Wealth of Nations (1776) for why some places are wealthier than others, and what political, economic, and other social institutions are required for increasing prosperity. The chapter discusses the conception of “justice,” as opposed to “beneficence,” that Smith offered The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), as well as Smith’s economizer, local knowledge, and invisible hand arguments from his Wealth of Nations that form the basis of his political economy. We look at the duties of government implied by Smithian political economy, including both what he argues government should do and what it should not do. We also look at empirical evidence to answer the question of whether Smith’s predictions on behalf of his recommendations have come true in the intervening centuries.

scholarly journals Retrospectives Ricardo on Machinery

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Hollander
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
The Third ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Technological Unemployment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
David Ricardo

We are currently experiencing an outpouring of concern both popular and professional regarding technological unemployment. I shall be discussing an apparent about-turn on the subject by David Ricardo (1772–1823), who at different times, even in different chapters of the same book, and, indeed, even at different places in the same chapter, seemed to be on both sides of the argument as to whether technological unemployment should be a matter for concern. In a chapter entitled “On Machinery,” added to the third edition of his Principles of Political Economy (1821), which comprises volume 1 of his Collected Works (1951–73), Ricardo announced that he had become concerned about the possibility, even likelihood, of technical change detrimental to labour’s interests. However, in the very same “On Machinery” chapter, Ricardo also outlined qualifications to show that there was little need for concern. Ricardo’s opposing messages are reflected in contrasting reactions to the chapter “On Machinery.” Some readers—including Thomas Robert Malthus and J. R. McCulloch—understood it as supporting working-class opposition to machinery. Others—including John Stuart Mill and Sir John Hicks—find therein the answer to such opposition

Progress and Poverty

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Calvo
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Thomas Malthus ◽  
Laissez Faire ◽  
Liberal Political Economy ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
David Ricardo

This chapter further illustrates the split between American and British liberal political economy by analyzing the antebellum treatment of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. Important distinctions are shown between American liberals on population, and theories of rent and wages. American exceptionalism was the primary intellectual impetus behind liberal America’s apostasy from British classicism. This chapter showcases the various forms of laissez-faire ideology that circulated in the domestic discourse, with special attention paid to, among others, J. D. B. De Bow, George Tucker, Henry Vethake, Jacob Cardozo, and Thomas Dew. American exceptionalism, combined with the influence of regional social, political, economic and cultural attitudes, shaped Americans’ understanding of British liberalism.

scholarly journals Special Issue Foreword: On the Political Economy of Amateur Athletics

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Joshua I. Newman ◽  
Kyle S. Bunds
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Thorstein Veblen ◽  
State Governance ◽  
David Ricardo ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

In its most artless definition, political economy refers to the study of inter- and intrastate transaction—concerned in large part with the dialectics of state governance and the production/consumption functions therein. Many of us, with varying degrees of deliberation, have read the works of forerunning political economists such as Adam Smith (c. 1723-1790), David Ricardo (c. 1772-1823), Thomas Malthus (c. 1766-1834), John Stuart Mill (c. 1806-1873), Karl Marx (c. 1818-1883), and Thorstein Veblen (c. 1857-1929). These classic political economists and their contemporaries shared a concern for the extent to which land, labor, income, capital, and the population derived value from, and maintained contingency with, state polity. While each diverged from the others in how to best organize the State in relation to markets and exchange activities (and vice versa) so as to optimize the citizenry’s well-being, these scholars and their contemporaries laid the foundations for the long-standing field of inquiry fixed on exploring how various national political systems (democracy, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, etc.), markets, and political and economic behavior could bring about national prosperity, maximize individual freedom, or raise collective utility.

The Political Economy of Revolution: Karl Polanyi in Tahrir Square

2021 ◽  
pp. 026327642098452
Author(s):  
Hany Zayed
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Karl Polanyi ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Egyptian History ◽  
Theoretical Apparatus

The causes and consequences of revolutionary change have long been the subject of scholarly debate. Through a systematic integration of political economic elements into an analysis of contemporary social transformations, this article joins this conversation by asking how Karl Polanyi’s double movement framework can clarify, and be extended by, the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. By embedding a nuanced account of neoliberalism in Egypt’s modern politics and by bringing those in dialogue with Polanyi’s theoretical apparatus, this article contends that there is a broad alignment between the first movement and the Egyptian neoliberal experience, a partial alignment between the second movement and the Egyptian Revolution, and a multilayered entanglement that implicates and encircles both movements. Not only does this research demonstrate that contemporary Egyptian history can find new currency in and be further illuminated by Polanyi’s political economy, it also critiques, complicates, reconceptualizes and extends Polanyi’s theoretical framework. In so doing, it redresses the underfocus of Polanyian political economy on the theory of revolution in general and the Egyptian Revolution in particular, problematizes extant accounts on neoliberalism and the double movement, and extends analyses between neoliberalism and revolution in political economy literatures. By clarifying our understanding of contemporary social change, this essay underscores how Polanyi’s work remains a pertinent, viable and valuable prism to examine momentous social transformations.

Adam Smith: Scottish moral philosopher as political economist

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Winch
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
Commutative Justice ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Autonomous Science

AbstractBy contrast with those for whom the Wealth of nations marks the origin of economics as an autonomous science, this article argues that Smith's significance lies in his attempt to repossess political economy by restoring its links with the sciences of morals and natural jurisprudence — those concerns which are characteristic of his writings as a moral philosopher. The case proceeds by re-examining two topics derived from these sciences. The first begins with Smith's ungenerous treatment of his mercantile predecessors as a clue to what he believed was distinctive about his own system. Smith was antagonistic to precisely those rationalist, utilitarian and reductive models of behaviour based on self-interest that he is held to have in common with mercantile writers; he was answering rather than joining those who felt it necessary to isolate and legitimate rational economic self-seeking. The second topic turns on Smith's natural jurisprudence: his application of the criteria of natural justice when criticizing mercantile policies and institutions, where the emphasis falls on the negative injunctions of commutative justice rather than the positive ones of distributive justice. The separation of the ethics of the Theory of moral sentiments from the Wealth of nations, therefore, tells us more about Smith's successors than Smith himself.

Elements of a Political Economy of Labor Power

October ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 9-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
Oskar Negt
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Labor Power ◽  
David Ricardo

The subtitle of Karl Marx's central work, Capital, reads: “Critique Of Political Economy.” Based on the observations of the Anglo-Saxon economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo, this work poses the following of many possible questions: If capital could speak, how would it explain itself? Can capital say “I”?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document