Abstract
The term, meaning ‘the science of exchanges’, was proposed as a replacement for the name ‘political economy’ by the Rev. Richard Whately in his 1831 Drummond Lectures at Oxford on political economy (Whately 1831). As the leader of the group of embattled religious and economic liberals at Oriel College, Oxford, during the 1820s, Whately, a distinguished logician, had become tutor and lifelong friend of the economist Nassau W. Senior. In his Drummond Lectures, Whately was concerned to refute the dominant Oxford view that political economy, being concerned with wealth, was materialistic and opposed to Christianity. In focusing on exchanges, Whately denounced Adam Smith’s definition of the scope of political economy as the science of wealth.
This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume
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Rothbard, M.N. (2008). Catallactics. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_48-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_48-2
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Chapter history
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Latest
Catallactics- Published:
- 10 March 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_48-2
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Original
Catallactics- Published:
- 12 October 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_48-1