Dixon: Carlyle, Malthus and Sismondi: the origins of Carlyle's dismal view of political economy

« Matthew Yglesias: Fred Hiatt’s Strange Op-Ed | Main | Dani Rodrik: Should industrial policy be fit for polite company? »

June 08, 2009

Dixon: Carlyle, Malthus and Sismondi: the origins of Carlyle's dismal view of political economy

Robert Dixon (2008), "Carlyle, Malthus and Sismondi: the origins of Carlyle's dismal view of political economy," History of Economics Review:

Abstract: While it is correct to say that Carlyle first applied the exact phrase 'dismal science' to political economy in his 1849 article on plantation labour in the West Indies, I argue that Carlyle came to the view that political economy was 'dismal' well before that time. Indeed, his negative attitude can be seen quite clearly in his earlier published reactions to the writings of Malthus (and Sismondi, amongst others) on population growth and its consequences and also to the perceived 'materialistic' nature of the subject matter of political economy.

June 08, 2009 at 05:21 PM in Economics, History | Permalink

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Support This Website

Search Brad DeLong's Website

Enter your search terms

Web

j-bradford-delong.net

delong.typepad.com

Submit search form

Reference Section

From Brad DeLong

J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at U.C Berkeley, a Research Associate of the NBER, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Chair of Berkeley's Political Economy major.

Among his best works are: "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?" "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare," "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," "Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?" "Keynesianism, Pennsylvania-Avenue Style," "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s," "American Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of the Great Depression," "Review of Robert Skidelsky (2000), John Maynard Keynes, volume 3, Fighting for Britain," "Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: Clinton Administration International Monetary and Financial Policy," "Productivity Growth in the 2000s," "Asset Returns and Economic Growth."
Leigh Speakers' Bureau:
The Eighteen-Year-Old is going to college next year, which means that I need to think about making more money. (The idea that one might write checks to rather than receive checks from universities is now strange to me.) So I have signed up with the Leigh Speakers' Bureau which also handles, among many others: Chris Anderson; Suzanne Berger; Michael Boskin; Kenneth Courtis; Clive Crook; Bill Emmott; Robert H. Frank; William Goetzmann; Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin; Paul Krugman; Bill McKibben; Paul Romer; Jeffrey Sachs; Robert Shiller;James Surowiecki; Martin Wolf; Adrian Wooldridge.

About Brad DeLong

Leigh Speakers' Bureau
The Eighteen-Year-Old is going to college, which means that I need to think about making more money. (The idea that one might write checks to rather than receive checks from universities still seems very strange to me.) So I have signed up with the Leigh Speakers' Bureau which also handles, among many others: Chris Anderson; Suzanne Berger; Michael Boskin; Kenneth Courtis; Clive Crook; Bill Emmott; Robert H. Frank; William Goetzmann; Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin; Paul Krugman; Bill McKibben; Paul Romer; Jeffrey Sachs; Robert Shiller;James Surowiecki; Martin Wolf; Adrian Wooldridge.
J. Bradford DeLong is a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, chair of its political economy major, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and was in the Clinton administration a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His best work extends from business cycle dynamics through economic growth, behavioral finance, political economy, economic history, international finance to the history of economic thought and other topics.
Among his best works are: "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?" "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare," "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," "Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?" "Keynesianism, Pennsylvania-Avenue Style," "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s," "American Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of the Great Depression," "Review of Robert Skidelsky (2000), John Maynard Keynes, volume 3, Fighting for Britain," "Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: Clinton Administration International Monetary and Financial Policy," "Productivity Growth in the 2000s," "Asset Returns and Economic Growth."

zzzz

Subscribe to my Podcast

Brad DeLong's Egregious Moderation

June 08, 2009

Dixon: Carlyle, Malthus and Sismondi: the origins of Carlyle's dismal view of political economy

Comments

Support This Website

Search Brad DeLong's Website

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Reference Section

Archives

From Brad DeLong

About Brad DeLong

zzzz