The Propagation of Ricardian Economics in England

Bibliographic Data

ID9726751
AuthorsS G CHECKLAND (corresponding author)
Year1949
Volume16
Issue61
Pages40
Publication date1949-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0427 • E-ISSN: 1468-0335
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2549417
OpenAlexW2332204613
LanguageEN
Citations received7

AMONG the post-Waterloo political economists the advocates of the complete Ricardian case were almost ludicrously few. So uphill was the task of conversion that on Ricardo's death in I823 James Mill could write to M'Culloch that they were his two and only genuine disciples .1 But a catalogue of their opponents of varying degrees was formidable: Malthus, Lauderdale, Chalmers, Spence, Torrens, Rooke, Craig, Bailey, West, Thompson, Sinclair, Young, Comber, Sismondi, Wilson, Jacob, and many others. Of these dissentients nearly all were to remain unshakeable in their own ideas. Though a few, like Torrens, were open to a fuller conversion, they remained for the most part critics of the Ricardian system. This meant that in addition to being outnumbered, the New School found itself opposed by all the senior members of the science, with the sole exception of James Mill. Finally, the Ricardians were innovators in the debate; all the prestige of precedent went to their opponents. Most political economists and most members of the public had a real respect for the possibility of gluts resting not on a syllogism, but on past experiences; their tendency was to fear break-down rather than to shrug it off. Even M'Culloch conceded2 that Malthus was in the line of Adam Smith in this matter. It is only when we reconstruct the forms of thought then current that we realise how extraordinary must have appeared the basic premise of the New School that consumption was co-extensive with production in any period of time worth considering.3 But in spite of all this the victory of the New School has assumed in latter-day eyes an air of inevitability. Explanation on several planes seems possible. It might be argued that the Ricardian case was the ' truer' case, and thus won on' merits ' as an analysis. Or we can inquire as so many have done on the level of social and economic trends, and no doubt arrive at some variant of the theme that Ricardianism was a useful apologia for the rising industrial middle class. But these factors, even if their operation is conceded, are of a more long-term nature; they do little to explain the early victory of Ricardianism. The timing of events is not without interest from this point of view. For a brief period before and after the publication of Ricardo's Principles in I8I7 his system was referred to as the New Political Economy; by the time the Royal Commission

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