Abstract
It was with reference to Sir James Steuart that T. W. Hutchison wrote: ‘In no branch of the subject is the dictum about history being the reward of the victors more valid than in the history of economics.’1 Steuart’s Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy was the first systematic economic treatise to be published in Britain, and introduced the very term ‘political economy’ into the English language.2 But he was eclipsed by his compatriot Adam Smith, if not within his own lifetime then most definitely in the eyes of subsequent generations. In recent decades there has been something of a Steuart revival, accompanied, however, by fundamental differences in the interpretation of his ideas. For some commentators Steuart was a moderate liberal, a pioneer proponent of the mixed economy, and an important predecessor of Keynes on both theoretical matters and issues of economic policy.3 Others see him as the ‘apotheosis of mercantilism’, an enemy of the free market who urged the establishment of a corporate state.4 A third view, influenced by Steuart’s own ideological background as well as by the assessment of Karl Marx, is that he was essentially an early historical materialist whose prime concern was the interrelationship between economic development and sociopolitical change.5
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Notes
T. W. Hutchison, review of Sir James Steuart, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, ed. A. S. Skinner (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1966), hereafter cited as Principles, Economic Journal 77, 1967, p. 645.
W. Letwin, The Origins of Scientific Economics: English Economic Thought1660–1776 (London: Methuen, 1963), p. 217.
According to Cannan, this was sufficient to prevent Adam Smith from using the term in the title of his Wealth of Nations: E. Cannan, A Review of Economic Theory (London: Cass, 1964; first published 1929), p. 43.
Hutchison, op. cit.; S. R. Sen, ‘Sir James Steuart’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’, Economica n.s. 14, 1947, pp. 19–36;
Sen, The Economics of Sir James Steuart (London: London School of Economics/Bell, 1957);
D. Vickers, Studies in the Theory of Money 1690–1776 (London: Peter Owen, 1960), pp. 240–90.
G. M. Anderson and R. D. Tollson, ‘Sir James Steuart as the Apotheosis of Mercantilism and his Relationship to Adam Smith’, Southern Economic Journal 51, 1984, pp. 456–68;
W. Eltis, ‘Sir James Steuart’s Corporate State’, paper presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Glasgow, 1985.
R. L. Meek, ‘The Rehabilitation of Sir James Steuart’, pp. 3–17 of Meek, Economics and Ideology and Other Essays: Studies in the Development of Economic Thought (London: Chapman & Hall, 1967);
A. Skinner, ‘Sir James Steuart: Economics and Politics’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 9, 1962, pp. 17–37; Skinner, ‘Analytical Introduction’ to Steuart, Principles, pp. lviii–lxxxiv;
M. Perelman, ‘Classical Political Economy and Primitive Accumulation: the Case of Smith and Steuart’, History of Political Economy 15, 1983, pp. 451–94;
Perelman, Classical Political Economy: Primitive Accumulation and the Social Division of Labour (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983), ch. 3.
A. Chitnis, The Scottish Enlightenment (London: Croom Helm, 1976);
J. Rendall, The Origins of the Scottish Enlightenment (London: Macmillan, 1976);
R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, The Origins and Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982);
I. Hont and M. Ignatieff (eds), Wealth and Virtue: the Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
R. L. Meek, ‘The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology’, pp. 34–50 of Meek, Economics and Ideology; A. S. Skinner, ‘A Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology?’, pp. 79–114 of I. Bradley and M. C. Howard (eds), Classical and Marxian Political Economy: Essays in Honour of R. L. Meek (London: Macmillan, 1982).
A. L. MacFie, ‘The Scottish Tradition in Economic Thought’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 2, 1955, pp. 81–103;
A. S. Skinner, ‘Economics and History: the Scottish Enlightenment’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 12, 1965, pp. 1–22.
Unless otherwise stated, all biographical details are taken from A. S. Skinner, ‘Biographical Sketch’, in Steuart, Principles, pp. xxi-lvii, which largely supersedes W. L. Taylor, ‘A Short Life of Sir James Steuart: Political Economist’, South African Journal of Economics 25, 1957, pp. 290–302; and
P. Chamley, Documents rélatifs à Sir James Steuart (Paris: Dalloz, 1965).
MacFie, op. cit., p. 83.
E. A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith (London: P. S. King, 1937), pp. 209–10;
J. A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1954), p. 176, n. 9.
Sir James Steuart, Works, Political, Metaphysical and Chronological, six volumes, ed. General Sir James Steuart (London: Cadell & Davies, 1805; reprinted New York, Kelley, 1967); for details of the Skinner edition see note 1.
Johnson, op. cit., p. 213. Sen and Vickers are important exceptions.
Anderson and Tollson, op. cit., pp. 463–4.
Works I, pp. 244–5 (Principles, pp. 160–1); cf. M. H. Dobb, Theories of Value and Distribution Since Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 43–7.
Works I, pp. 375–7 (Principles, pp. 246–7). On Steuart’s pessimism, which is one of his most obvious intellectual characteristics, see Johnson, op. cit., pp. 229–30 (where it is attributed to the influence of David Hume);
and W. Stark, ‘Steuart, James Denham’, in D. L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 15 (New York: Macmillan and The Free Press, 1968), pp. 265–6. The Scottish Enlightenment in general displayed less optimism than the contemporary French philosophers (Skinner, ‘Economics and History’, p. 17).
E. S. Furniss, The Position of the Labourer in a System of Nationalism (New York: Kelley, 1965; first published 1920), pp. 157–97, 201.
J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. W. J. Ashley (London: Longmans, Green, 1909; first published 1848), pp. 748–51; cf.
Anderson and Tollson, op. cit., p. 459.
Smith to William Pulteney, 3 September 1772, in E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, The Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 164; Chamley, Documents, pp. 66–7, 141 (Letter from Steuart to Chalmers(?) on the price of grain, 14 October 1777).
Anderson and Tollson, op. cit., p. 465.
S. Rashid, ‘Adam Smith’s Rise to Fame: a Re-examination of the Evidence’, The Eighteenth Century 23, 1982, pp. 64–85.
Rashid, op. cit., pp. 71, 78.
Ibid., pp. 76–9; Edinburgh Weekly Magazine, 7 December 1780, pp. 261–2.
Rashid, op. cit., pp. 80–1;
P. Deane and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth 1688–1959 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 33, table 8.
D. Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. P. Sraffa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951–2), I, p. 5; III, pp. 7, 32–3, 72–7, 81; IV, p. 59n; VI, p. 34; VII, p. 202.
J. K. Ingham, ‘Sir James Steuart’, in P. H. I. Palgrave (ed.), Dictionary of Political Economy (London: Macmillan, 1918), pp. 475–6.
A. Marshall, Principles of Economics (London: Macmillan, eighth edn, 1962; first published 1890), pp. 58, n. 2, 146, n. 2, 626;
W. Cunningham, ‘The Progress of Economic Doctrine in England in the Eighteenth Century’, Economic Journal 1, 1891, pp. 84–6.
P. Chamley, Économie politique et philosophie chez Steuart et Hegel (Paris: Dalloz, 1963),
and Chamley, ‘Les origines de la pensée économique de Hegel’, Hegel-Studien 3, 1965, pp. 225–61. More generally on Hegel’s social and economic thought,
see S. Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) and
D. Cullen, Hegel’s Social and Political Thought: an Introduction (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1979).
K. Marx, Capital I (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), pp. 352n, 616n, 657n (Malthus); Critique of Political Economy (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971), p. 168 (Smith).
K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), p. 133.
Capital I, p. 332n; Marx, Theories of Surplus Value I (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1969), pp. 41–3; IIII (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1972), p. 399; Capital III (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1962), p. 766;
F. Engels, Anti-Dühring (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942), p. 278 (the relevant chapter was written by Marx, not Engels).
E. Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy From 1776 to 1848 (London: P. S. King, 1920; first published 1893), p. 4; cf. Cannan, Review of Economic Theory, p. 24;
Johnson, op. cit., pp. 209–34.
P. Chamley, ‘Sir James Steuart, Inspirateur de la théorie générale de Lord Keynes?’, Revue d’Économie Politique 72, 1962, pp. 303–13;
P. Lambert, ‘Steuart et Keynes: bref commentaire sur l’étude de M. Chamley’, ibid., 73, 1963, pp. 104–5;
Chamley, ‘Steuart et Keynes: réflexions sur le commentaire de M. Lambert’, ibid., pp. 105–9.
Sen, ‘Sir James Steuart’s General Theory’, p. 35; Sen, Economics of Sir James Steuart, p. 188; on Steuart’s nationalism see G. E. Davie, ‘Anglophobe and Anglophil’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 14, 1967, pp. 291–304.
D. Vickers, Studies, p. 268; Vickers, review of Steuart, Works, Journal of Economic Literature 8, 1970, pp. 1190–5.
M. A. Akhtar, ‘Steuart on Growth’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 25, 1978, pp. 57–74;
Akhtar, ‘An Analytical Outline of Sir James Steuart’s Macroeconomic Model’, Oxford Economic Papers 31, 1979, pp. 283–302.
Perelman, Classical Political Economy, op. cit.;
Skinner, ‘Sir James Steuart: Economics and Politics’, op. cit.
Anderson and Tollson, op. cit., p. 459.
Eltis, op. cit., p. 31;
L. Panitch, ‘Trade Unions and the Capitalist State’, New Left Review 125, 1981, pp. 21–43.
H. W. Spiegel, The Growth of Economic Thought (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), p. 215.
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King, J.E. (1988). Sir James Steuart (1713–1780). In: Economic Exiles. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07743-4_2
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