Plutology (Gr. $\boldsymbol{\uppi} \boldsymbol{\uplambda} \mathbf{o} \widehat{\boldsymbol{\upupsilon}}\mathbf{o} \boldsymbol{\upsigma}$, Wealth)

Abstract

This term was used by Courcelle-Seneuil to describe that part of his treatise on political economy which dealt with what is described by some more modern writers as ‘pure theory’; that scientific study of the results of the action of economic motives on men and societies to which the terms ‘economics’ and ‘economic science’ have been applied in the effort to escape the confusions which arose from embracing under the general title) ‘political economy’, both these more abstract investigations and the application of the knowledge thus gained, with that derived from other sources, to problems of practical statemanship. To this second part of the subject the eminent French economist applied the term Ergonomy. The Australian W.E. Hearn adopted the title for his work, Plutology, or the Theory of the Efforts to satisfy Human Wants.