The importance of this book, translated for the first time in 1983, lies not so much in List’s advocacy of the fiscal policy of protection as in the relatively new doctrines that he put forward. He discussed stages of economic growth, ‘productive powers’ and the industrialisation of developing regions. List’s most fundamental teachings are fully developed in this book.
Since the early 20th century, economics has been the dominant discourse in English-speaking countries, displacing Christian theology from its previous position of authority. This path-breaking book is a major contribution to the interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and religion. Oslington tells the story of natural theology shaping political economy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, emphasising continuing significance of theological issues for the discipline of economics. Early political economists such as Adam Smith, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, William Paley, TR Malthus, Richard Whately, JB Sumner, Thomas Chalmers and William Whewell, extended the British scientific natural theology tradition of Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton to the social world. This extension nourished and shaped political economy as a discipline, influencing its theoretical framework, but perhaps more importantly helping legitimate political economy in the British universities and public policy circles. Educating the public in the principles of political economy had a central place in this religiously driven program. Natural theology also created tensions (especially reconciling economic suffering with divine goodness and power) that eventually contributed to its demise and the separation of economics from theology in mid-19th-century Britain. This volume highlights aspects of the story that are neglected in standard histories of economics, histories of science and contemporary theology. Political Economy as Natural Theology is essential reading for all concerned with the origins of economics, the meaning and purpose of economic activity and the role of religion in contemporary policy debates.
Henry George died fighting one of the most corrupt political organizations of the civilized world — a sufficient epitaph for any worthy man. But he has larger claims to respect and consideration. He made a creditable attempt to solve the root-problem of material life — poverty, — and his just-published posthumous book, " The Science of Political Economy," excites that pathetic interest which attaches to the memory of one who tried to aid his fellowman. He was eloquent, but he was free from the hysteria of demagogy. His sympathies, born of bitter vicissitude, were acute, but they were tempered with reason. He believed in the equality of opportunity ; but he believed also (as an American and an individualist) in the natural inequality of capacity. When he saw the industrial evils of the Old World reappear in one of the richest and fairest parts of the New — commercial depression, involuntary idleness, wasting capital, pecuniary distress, want, suffering, anxiety, — he was startled, and he set about to discover the cause. We value him for what he tried to do. "Progress and Poverty " was an immensely interesting and attractive book on a seemingly sapless science. It struck fire from flint, and lifted the author from obscurity to world-wide celebrity. Emerson says that every man is eloquent in that which he understands. It would be, perhaps, truer to say that every man is eloquent in that in which he fervently believes, and George believed that he had given a message. To quote his own words: " On the night on which I finished the final chapter of 'Progress and Poverty,' I felt that the talent entrusted to me had been accounted for — was more fully satisfied, more deeply grateful, than if all the Kingdoms of the earth had been laid at my feet." No one doubts his sincerity, his intellectual integrity, the cleanliness of his soul. His expectations were infinite, his faith simple. The poverty of the world lay not in Nature but in a vicious economic system ; and he thought that he had found a "sovereign remedy" which would "raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights."
This book traces the history of economic thought over the last 300 years, from its emergence as a scientific discipline in the 17th century to the present. More than a conventional history, the book focuses on the evolution of the discipline in the light of the moral, scientific, and political ideas and attitudes with which each new generation of economists has developed its distinctive vision of a changing economic system. Deane balances the twin themes of the economists' desire to be scientific and their desire to satisfy central government's need for reliable advice on the workings of the system, offering clear and accessible analyses of the major thinkers and the problems they pose.
