tailieunhanh - History of Economic Analysis part 51

History of Economic Analysis part 51. 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 462 edged indebtedness to him and followed his lead and it is safe to assume that his influence extended beyond the range of explicit recognition. Nevertheless historians who to this day fail to give Bailey his due are only accepting the facts of the case as it presented itself at the time. Writing in 1845 McCulloch did not risk provoking laughter when he wrote in his Literature of Political Economy that Bailey had not properly appreciated the Ricardian theory and had not succeeded in any degree in shaking its foundations in the face of the fact that a poll of writers on value from 1826 to 1845 would produce a considerable majority for Bailey. These are the explanations I have to offer. First in science as in art and especially in politics there is such a thing as coming too soon and failure much more complete than was Bailey s is the usual result of premature action. Second Bailey s criticism was indeed constructive and did suggest by implication how the system he attacked could have been replaced by a more satisfactory one but he did not try to do so and those who followed in his wake and tried were no match for the shadow of Ricardo. They no doubt undermined his system and thus helped toward s transformation of it but they did so by a slow process of attrition rather than by spectacular victory. In this process of attrition Chalmers 18 influence counted for a good deal at least in Scotland. As a theorist he was thoroughly un-Ricardian and followed the line of what we have called Malthus recoinage of the Wealth of Nations. He also followed Malthus in matters of general gluts and oversupply of capital. If it were possible to speak of a Malthusian school in general theory which I doubt Chalmers would have to figure as its McCulloch which is after all not so left-handed a compliment as it may seem to the reader. Lord Lauderdale19 stands somewhat out of line and holds only a secondary position in the history of economics but one