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Economic Welfare

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Lionel Robbins

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Abstract

This chapter deals with Robbins’s writings on economic welfare. Robbins, it emerges, was a Utilitarian in the tradition stemming from Bentham and transmitted by, in particular, Jevons. From this Utilitarian base, coupled with a fundamental appreciation of the market and a crucial stress on the importance of liberty, Robbins dealt with matters of equality, State intervention, redistribution, taxation, socialism, competition and economic growth. It should already be clear from Chapter 3 that Robbins’s methodological position did not involve the proposition that economists should abstain from comment on policy matters. Examination of his discussions concerning economic welfare should help to make this even more clear.

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Notes and References

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  100. (1935a) pp. 136–8, 150–1; (1979a) pp. 31–2.

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  105. (1976a) pp. 110, 115–16.

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  106. (1963a) pp. 105 (citing Smith), 109.

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  111. (1974b) pp. 10–12.

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  114. (1939a) p. 267n.

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  118. (1963a) p. 40. See also (1940c) p. 95 and ibid. p. 96: ‘One feels that one is listening in to the gibber of a collection of robots wound up by the village imbecile. Talk about the “opium of the people …”.’

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  145. (1976a) pp. 137–8. However Robbins does not make explicit reference to Hayek’s book.

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  146. (1939a) p. 43.

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  147. (1943) p. 14.

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  148. (1976a) pp. 55–8.

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  157. (1939a) pp. 41–2.

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  166. (1934) p. 139.

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  169. (1939a) p. 42n.

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  174. See also (1971b) p. 214.

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  196. (1939a) pp. 81–106; see also Chapter 9 in this book.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Durham, UK

    D. P. O’Brien (Professor of Economics)

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© 1988 D. P. O’Brien

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O’Brien, D.P. (1988). Economic Welfare. In: Lionel Robbins. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09683-1_5

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