tailieunhanh - History of Economic Analysis part 37

History of Economic Analysis part 37. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | History of economic analysis 322 great companies affected domestic interests also and from the other fact that their success aroused the envious hatred of both the squire and the common man against the nabobs. Attacks elicited replies of which it may be worth while to notice the best example that has come to my notice John Wheeler s defense of the Merchants Adventurers among other things against the bureaucratic spokesmen for regulation who know nothing about business tout comme chez nous . This work mentioned before in Chapters 3 and 6 entitled A Treatise of Commerce Wherein are shewed the Commodities arising by a well ordered and ruled Trade such as that of the Societie of Merchants Adventurers is proved to be Written principally for the better Information of those who doubt of the Necessarinesse of the said Societie in the State of the Realme of England 1601 was also written as we may add with impending hostile legislation in view. In my opinion Mr. Wheeler did extremely well and his argument successfully disposes of some of the points that are invariably raised in discussions about monopoly. His economics is not a bit below the level that we observe in similar popular or political or forensic arguments today. But he contributes nothing to our collection of scientific tools. His analytic economics was on the whole not wrong. There was very little of it however. Because of its prominence the East India Company at tracted the lion s share of public attention and hostility. This accounts for a large part of the literature in question. So far as I can see however there is nothing in it to interest us except the arguments and counter-arguments about the company s exportation of monetary metal and about the competition which though harassed by legislation and administration it offered to English woolens by its imports of Indian wares. However these arguments and counter-arguments enter into the general discussion concerning the balance of trade see sec. 4 . Attention