Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| John Elliott Cairnes: John Elliott Cairnes (1823–1875) was an Irish economist and a leading proponent of classical economics. He contributed significantly to the development of economic thought, particularly on labor and international trade. His key works include The Slave Power (1862), analyzing slavery's economic impact, and Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1874), refining Ricardo's theories._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Murray N. Rothbard on Cairnes, John Elliott - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard II 290 John Elliott Cairnes/Rothbard: J.E. Cairnes has been known as 'the last of the classical economists'; after Mill's death he assumed the mantle of outstanding British economist in the minds of the public, and in 1874 he lashed out in incomprehension at the revolutionary marginal utility theory of William Stanley Jevons (in Cairnes's Some Leading Principles of Political Economy). Cairnes was a determined cost-of-production theorist, granting his only significant exception in his well-known 'theory of non-competing groups'. This theory recognized that where factors of production, in particular labour, did not immediately and fully compete with each other, the prices of the factors are determined by demand rather than by cost. Unfortunately, Cairnes lifted the theory from Longfield's Lectures on Political Economy without giving him credit; we know that this was not a case of ignorance of a distinguished predecessor, since Cairnes assigned Longfield's work in his own classes.(1) >Mountifort Longfield, >John Stuart Mill, >Classical Economics. Method/Cairnes: Cairnes's work of most lasting value, his Character and Logical Method, while including some Millian positivism, was essentially a methodological work in the great Nassau Senior-praxeological tradition. >Positivism. Thus Cairnes, after agreeing with Mill that there can be no controlled experiments in the social sciences, adds the important point that the social sciences, nevertheless, have a crucial advantage over the physical sciences. For, in the latter, 'mankind have no direct knowledge ofultimate physical principles'. The laws of physics are not themselves evident to our consciousness nor are they directly apparent; their truth rests on the fact that they account for natural phenomena. But, in contrast, Cairnes goes on, 'the economist starts with a knowledge of ultimate causes'. How? Because the economist realizes that the 'ultimate principles governing economic phenomena' are 'certain mental feelings and certain animal propensities in human beings; [and] the physical conditions under which production takes Ppace'. To arrive at these premises of economics 'no elaborate process of induction is needed'. For all we need to do is 'to turn our attention to the subject', and we obtain 'direct knowledge of these causes in our consciousness of what passes in our own minds, and in the information which our senses convey... to us of external facts'.(2) Cairnes also demonstrates that the economist uses mental experiments as replacements for laboratory experiments of the physical scientist. He shows too, that deduced economic laws are 'tendency', or 'if-then', laws, and furthermore that they are necessarily qualitative and not quantitative, and therefore cannot admit of mathematical or statistical expression. 1. Cairnes's successor to the Whately chair in 1861, and the last holder of that chair in the archbishop's lifetime, was Arthur Houston (1833-1914), who continued in the new Mill-Cairnes cost of production tradition. In his Principles of Value in Exchange (1864), Houston held that the 'net cost ofproduction' was the dominent causal force in determining value, and even tried to arrive at a mathematically expressed 'unit of sacrifice' that could measure that cost. 'Criticism' of this theory, as Black noted, 'would be superfluous'. R.D.C. Black, 'Trinity College, Dublin, and the Theory ofValue, 1832-1863', Economica, n.s. 12 (August 1945), p. 148. Houston wrote other books on comparative law and the English drama. J.G. Smith, 'some Nineteenth Century Irish Economists', Economica n.s. 2 (Feb. 1935), pp. 30-31. 2. J.E. Cairnes, The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy (2nd ed., London: Macmillan, 1875) pp. 83-7, 88._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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