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The Place of Learning, Science, Vocational Training, and “Art” in Pre-Smithian Economic Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

E. A. J. Johnson
E. A. J. Johnson
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

If one views economic development as the purposeful management of resources through time, an action program must perforce concern itself with utilizing natural resources as fully as possible; with improving the quality and effectiveness of the present and the future supply of human resources; and with changing and perfecting the technological processes whereby natural and human resources are combined. The keys that can open the treasures of economic progress are therefore forged in the schoolroom, the laboratory, the inventor's shop, and the research institute. We take this for granted today because the burgeoning teaching and research apparatus is now much more evident in a physical, financial, and workforce sense than in any previous context. But the difference between our era and earlier experiences with economic development is not absolute; in the past as in the present, whenever economic progress quickened it was a consequence of new insights and a new knowledge, of novelty in thought and action, in short, it was the usufruct of an educational awakening.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1964 , pp. 129 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1964

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References

1 See Usher, Abbott Payson, The History of Mechanical Inventions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1929), chs. i and iiGoogle Scholar.

2 Hales, A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England (London, 1581). This remarkable set of dialogues, once erroneously attributed to William Shakespeare, was probably written as early as 1549.

3 I have described various types of pre-Smithian economic thinking in my Predecessors of Adam Smith (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1937Google Scholar; and London: P. S. King, 1937).

4 Hales, Discourse, p. 22.

6 Ibid., p. 89.

6 See ch. ii of my Predecessors for an analysis of Malynes' writings and for an appraisal of his influence on economic thought.

7 de Malynes, Gerard, Consuetudo vel Lex Mercatoria (London, 1622), p. 227Google Scholar.

8 See my Predecessors, p. 69; and Misselden, Edward, The Circle of Commerce (London, 1623), p. 17Google Scholar.

9 Mun, Thomas, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (London, 1664Google Scholar; written ca. 1629), pp. 7–8.

10 “What else makes a Commonwealth,” asked Edward Misselden, “but the private wealth.” Circle of Commerce, p. 17.

11 Mun, England's Treasure, pp. 10–11.

12 Ibid., pp. 17, 97.

13 I like to imagine that William Petty may have watched John Leach, the local clockmaker, working on a tall clock I now own, since it was made at Romsey at the very time when Petty was “a weaver's brat” in that Hampshire town.

14 In an appendix to Edmond Fitzmaurice, The Life of Sir William Petty (London, 1895), will be found the text of Sir William's will. It is from this remarkable document that the passage cited above is quoted.

15 Although Francis Bacon did not deal systematically with political or economic issues, he indirectly left his influence on the social sciences. In the New Atlantis and in Book VI, ch. iv, of the Advancement of Learning, he treated education as one of the main forces that could mold and shape the ideal state. Teaching should be adapted to the needs of the community and to the capacity of the student. Not only should natural sciences be stressed, but the whole scope of education should be widened and made more accurate and precise.

16 Petty's major contributions to economic thought were in the fields of statistics and taxation. Whereas in statistics his influence was seminal rather than substantive, in taxation his contributions were very specific recommendations. See particularly his Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (London, 1662).

17 Petty, The Political Anatomy of Ireland (London, 1691), author's preface. Published posthumously, this essay was written ca. 1672.

18 See Hull, C. H., Economic Writings of Sir William Petty (2 vols.; Cambridge, 1899), p. 20Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 29; Fitzmaurice, Life of … Petty, p. 323.

20 Hull, Economic Writings, pp. 23–26.

21 Ibid., p. 28.

22 In order to maintain such discipline, the state should “make work” if necessary: better to bring the “stones at Stonehenge to Tower Hill” than to let labor fall into habits of lassitude and idleness. Ibid., p. 31.

23 Ibid., p. 68.

24 Ibid., p. 63.

25 This estimate is to be found in Petty's Verbum Sapienti (written ca. 1665), the text of which is republished in Hull's Economic Writings.

26 Petty, Political Arithmetick, author's preface.

27 For a wise and felicitous account of this great discovery, see Becker, Carl L., The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1932)Google Scholar.

28 The tract was written in the fifth year of Anne's reign (1707). I had the good fortune to find this manuscript among the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum. For an analysis of this remarkable document, see ch. vii of my Predecessors.

29 Grew, “The Means/ Of a Most Ample Encrease of/ the Wealth and Strength of/ England in a Few Years/ Humbly Represented to her Majestie/ In the Fifth Year/ of her Reign.” Lansdowne Ms. 691 (British Museum), pp. 14–15.

30 This proposal is one of the earliest suggestions for what we now call an agricultural extension service.

31 Lansdowne Ms. 691, p. 49.

32 Ibid., p. 56.

33 Ibid., p. 83.

34 Ibid., p. 87.

35 They were, however, quite important as reflectors of public opinion, and in this role they indicate fairly well the degree of economic literacy of the business community.

36 For a succinct account of Postlethwayt's place in pre-Smithian economic thought, see ch. x of my Predecessors.

37 The Dictionary was an amplified and anglicized version of Jacques Savary des Brulons' Dictionnaire Universel de Commerce. For a collation of Savary's Dictionnaire and Postlethwayt's Dictionary, see Appendix B of my Predecessors.

38 Postlethwayt, , Great Britain's True System (London, 1757), p. xliGoogle Scholar.

39 Idem, The British Mercantile Academy: or The Accomplished Merchant (London, 1750).

40 Idem, The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (4th ed., London, Vol. II, 1774)Google Scholar, article on “The British Mercantile College.”

41 Ibid.

42 Postlethwayt, , Britain's Commercial Interest Explained and Improved (London, 1757), I, 264–66Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., p. 247. Like Andrew Yarranton in England's Improvement by Sea and Land (London, 1677), Postlethwayt advocated the compilation of a “land register” so that crops might be better adapted to soils. Such a “cadastral survey” was undertaken by Yugoslavia in 1953 as a part of her development program.

44 Postlethwayt, Dictionary, article on “Husbandry.”

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Idem, Britain's Commercial Interest, I, 189. What the Royal Society was already doing is itemized in Appendix A of my Predecessors.

48 Ibid., II, 377–78.

49 See below.

50 Postlethwayt, Dictionary, article on “Artificer, or Artisan or Mechanic.”

51 Ibid.

52 The article on “Apprentice” in the Dictionary is a spiritless compilation of French and British regulations.

53 Ibid., article on “Artificer.”

54 For an account of Steuart's place in the history of economic thought, see ch. xi of my Predecessors.

55 Involved in the fateful attempt of Prince Charles against the British Crown in 1745, Steuart was banished and lived in exile until he was allowed to return to Scotland in 1762.

56 The Works, Political, Metaphysical, and Chronological of the Late Sir James Steuart of Coltness (6 vols.; London, 1805), I, 4Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., I, 7 and 63 ff.

58 Locke and other philosophers use the word, but it is rarely found in the economic tracts.

59 I have analyzed the etymology of this word and illustrated its meanings in ch. xiii of my Predecessors.

60 Evelyn, , Navigation and Commerce, Their Origin and Progress (London, 1674), p. 70Google Scholar.

61 Petty, Economic Writings, pp. 249–50.

62 Campbell, John, A Political Survey of England (London, 1774), II, 226Google Scholar.

63 Defoe, , A Plan of English Commerce (London, 1738), p. 36Google Scholar.

64 Petty, Economic Writings, p. 256.

65 Postlethwayt, Britain's Commercial Interest, II, 417.

66 John Cary, An Essay on the State of England, p. 146.

67 Davenant, William, An Essay on the East India Company (London, 1696), p. 13Google Scholar.

68 Postlethwayt, Britain's Commercial Interest, II, 427.

69 Idem, Dictionary, article on “Husbandry.”

70 Petty, Economic Writings, p. 81.

71 Ibid., p. 182.

72 Temple, A Vindication of Commerce and the Arts (London, 1758), p. 40Google Scholar.

73 Hume, David, Philosophical Works (4 vols.; Edinburgh, 1826), III, 165Google Scholar.

74 Steuart's term.

75 “Where industry and arts flourish,” Hume, said, “men are kept in perpetual occupation and enjoy as their reward the occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are the fruits of their labour.” Political Discourses (Edinburgh, 1752), p. 25Google Scholar.

76 Ibid., pp. 26–27.

77 Postlethwayt, Britain's Commercial Interest, II, 393.

78 Hume, Political Discourses, p. 27–28.