Brief Outline of Topics Covered in Lecture 6:
Additional Reading
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Malthus
The Peterloo Massacre, 1819: The French Revolution postponed in England many reforms which had been rendered necessary by rapid industrial progress. Radicalism was associated in the public mind with a French origin, and that killed it politically. After Waterloo the tide turned and agitators gained a hearing. The landed interests wished to maintain the late war prices, and the artisan population desired cheap bread. Hence discontent, oratory, and riots which resulted in the loss of life. The most celebrated disturbance of these years is the "Peterloo Massacre" of 1819. On August 16th a mass meeting was arranged by the Manchester radicals to hear Henry Hunt, a speaker who advocated annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the ballot. A crowd gathered in St. Peter's Fields, and trouble arose between it and the Lancashire militia who were present on the plea of preserving order. The troops charged and killed several persons, to the intense indignation of radical sympathizers in every part of the island.
The adjournment of the preceding meeting, the considerable interval of preparation which had been allowed; a vague feeling perhaps, that such assemblages would not much longer be permitted,---all conspired to render the concourse great beyond all former example. A little before noon on the 16th of August, the first body of reformers began to arrive on the scene of action, which was a piece of ground called St. Peter's Field, adjoining a church of that name in the town of Manchester. These persons bore two banners, surmounted with caps of liberty, and bearing the inscriptions: "No Corn Laws," "Annual Parliaments," "Universal Suffrage," "Vote By Ballot." Some of these flags, after being paraded round the field, were planted in the cart on which the speakers stood; but others remained in different parts of the crowd. Numerous large bodies of reformers continued to arrive from the towns in the neighborhood of Manchester till about one o'clock, all preceded by flags, and many of them in regular marching order, five deep. Two clubs of female reformers advanced, one of them numbering more than 150 members, and bearing a white silk banner. One body of reformers timed their steps to the sound of a bugle with much of a disciplined air; another had assumed to itself the motto of the illustrious Wallace, "God armeth the Patriot." A band of special constables assumed a position on the field without resistance. The congregated multitude now amounted to a number roundly computed at 80,000, and the arrival of the hero of the day was impatiently expected.
At length Mr. Hunt made his appearance, and after a rapturous greeting, was invited to preside; he signified his assent, and mounting a scaffolding, began to harangue his admirers. He had not proceeded far, when the appearance of the yeomanry cavalry advancing toward the area in a brisk trot, exciting a panic in the outskirts of the meeting. They entered the inclosure, and after pausing a moment to recover their disordered ranks, and breathe their horses, they drew their swords, and brandished them fiercely in the air. The multitude, by the direction of their leaders, gave three cheers, to show that they were undaunted by this intrusion, and the orator had just resumed his speech to assure the people that this was only a trick to disturb the meeting, and to exhort them to stand firm, when the cavalry dashed into the crowd, making for the cart on which the speakers were placed. The multitude made no resistance, they fell back on all sides.
The commanding officer then approaching Mr. Hunt, and brandishing his sword, told him that he was his prisoner. Mr. Hunt, after enjoining the people to tranquility, said, that he would readily surrender to any civil officer on showing his warrant, and Mr. Nadin, the principal police officer, received him in charge. Another person, named Johnson, was likewise apprehended, and a few of the mob; some others against whom there were warrants, escaped in the crowd.
A cry now arose among the military of "Have at their flags!" and they dashed down not only those in the cart, but the others dispersed in the field; cutting to right and left to get at them. The people began running in all directions; and from this moment the yeomanry lost all command of temper: numbers were trampled under the feet of men and horses; many, both men and women, were cut down by sabers; several, and a peace officer and a female in the number, slain on the spot. The whole number of persons injured amounted to between three and four hundred. The populace threw a few stones and brick bats in their retreat; but in less than ten minutes the ground was entirely cleared of its former occupants, and filled by various bodies of military, both horse and foot. Mr. Hunt was led to prison, not without incurring considerable danger, and some injury on his way from the swords of the yeomanry and the bludgeons of police officers; the broken staves of two of his banners were carried in mock procession before him. The magistrates directed him to be locked up in a solitary cell, and the other prisoners were confined with the same precaution. The town was brought into a tolerably quiet state before night, military patrols being stationed at the end of almost every street.
Source
From: Charles W. Colby, ed., Selections from the Sources of English History, B.C. 55 - A.D. 1832 (London: Longmans, Green, 1920), pp. 298-300.
Brief Outline of Topics Covered in Lecture 4:
The Classical School - Forerunners (ch. 2)
The Classical School - Adam Smith (ch. 3)
Additional reading:
Two famous quotes from the Wealth of Nations:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual value of society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
And:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
Brief Outline of Topics Covered in Lecture 3:
The Physiocrats (ch. 2)
The Classical School - Forerunners (ch. 2)
The Classical School - Adam Smith (ch. 3) [first part of chapter if we get this far]
Additional reading:
The humbly-born François Quesnay trained himself in medicine, rising to become a physician in Louis XV's court and the leader of a sect of Enlightenment thinkers known as the Physiocrats or the économistes. The working-class boy who could not read until he was 11 was eventually elected to the Academy of Sciences and hailed as the "Confucius of Europe", the "modern Socrates", by his gentlemen-disciples.
Born in Méré to a family of laborers, Quesnay was orphaned at thirteen. He learned to read from a household medical companion and quickly acquired a voracious appetite for more books and more learning. After a brief apprenticeship, some schooling at Saint-Côme, and marrying a Parisian grocer's daughter (a huge step up in social status), Quesnay set himself up as a country barber-surgeon in Mantes. His (rapid) self-education and skills shone through and, recommendation upon recommendation, he gradually climbed up the greasy pole, entering into the service of local aristocrats. This gave him some time to do more reading, studying and writing.
Quesnay's numerous tracts on surgery cemented his reputation. He was particularly keen on elevating the status of surgery into a medical science (much to the medical establishment's horror). The King's edict of 1743 separating surgeons from barbers and the later creation of a royal college of surgeons was partly his doing.
In 1749, on the strength of a strong recommendation, Quesnay became the personal physician of the King Louis XV's mistress, the Madame de Pompadour. Quesnay settled in Versailles, finally entering the highest circle of power. He was elected to the Academié des sciences in 1751 and fell in with the philosophes, who curiously sought out the little country surgeon who had so bravely challenged the great doctors.
Quesnay's interest in economics arose in 1756, where, hoping to draw on his country background, he was asked to contribute several articles on farming to the Encylopèdie of Diderot and d'Alembert. Quesnay delved into the works of the Maréchal de Vauban, Pierre de Boisguilbert and Richard Cantillon and, mixing all these ingredients together, Quesnay gradually came up with his famous economic theory.
In 1757, he met the Marquis de Mirabeau, his first convert. He was followed by Mercier de la Riviere and DuPont de Nemours and several others. In 1758, Quesnay wrote his Tableau Économique -- renowned for its famous "zig-zag" depiction of income flows between economic sectors-- to explain his doctrine. It became the founding document of the Physiocratic sect -- and the ancestor of the multisectoral input-output systems of Marx , Sraffa and Leontief and modern general equilibrium theory. (See our analysis of Quesnay's Tableau).
Quesnay began with the axiom that agriculture is the only source of produit net (net product, or surplus of output above cost). He believed that manufacturing and commerce were "sterile" as (in his view), the value of their output was equal to the value of their inputs. Only land, Quesnay reasoned, produced more than went into it. The wealth of a nation, Quesnay argued, lies in the size of its net product.
Quesnay opposed the mercantilist doctrines of Colbert, which still held in the French court, believing that they concentrated too much on propping up industry and commerce rather than agriculture. Influenced by Vincent de Gournay, an advocate of laissez-faire, Quesnay wished to see many of the Medieval rules governing agricultural production lifted, permitting the economy to find its "natural state". The natural state of the economy was conceived as the balanced circular flow of income between economic sectors and thus social classes which maximized the net product. In these concepts, Quesnay saw analogies to the circulation of human blood and the homeostasis of a body.
Quesnay was largely responsible for the distinction between the ordre naturel (nature's order) and the ordre positif (positive, i.e. human-idealized, order). A good government, Quesnay argued, should follow a laissez-faire policy so that the ordre naturel could emerge.
Quesnay went on to write numerous articles on economics in 1766-8 in the Journal de l'agriculture, du commerce et de finances and in the Ephémérides du Citoyen under pseudonyms like M.N., M.H., M.A., M. de Isles, etc. (sometimes having his alter-egos enjoin in journal debates with each other). His 1766 formule article is perhaps his clearest presentation. However, it was presentations, commentaries and elucidations upon Quesnay's system by Mirabeau (1760, 1763), Mercier de la Riviere (1767) and DuPont de Nemours (1767) that gave Quesnay's ideas a more systematic feel. Their worship of Quesnay knew no bounds.
Brief Outline of Topics Covered in Lecture 2 (Wednesday 1/6):
Mercantilism (ch. 2)
Physiocrats (ch. 2)
Additional reading:
The Regulations of the Weavers' Gild of Stendal, 1233
The weavers' law, granted by the city of Stendal, regulated the number of spindles to be used by a craftsman, membership of the gild, and the quality of the work.
The Consuls of Stendal . . . wish it to be known that we have taken the advice of our leading citizens and officials, and have passed the following decree:
1. If any of our burgesses should wish to practice the craft of weaving he ought to have one spindle or as many as two, and he should place them in his house, and for every spindle he should pay three solidi on entry into the fraternity. But if he should not pay the denarii within the said time and he afterwards cease to be of the craft he cannot regain it except with twenty-three solidi.
2. Whoever is not of the fraternity is altogether forbidden to make cloth.
3. But if any brother should make cloth against the institutions of the brethren, and of their decrees, which he ought on the advice of the consuls to observe, he will present to the consuls by way of emendation one talent for each offense or he will lose his craft for a year.
4. But if any one be caught with false cloth, his cloth will be burned publicly, and verily, the author of the crime will amend according to justice.
5. Should any foreigner wish to practice this craft he will first acquire citizenship and will afterwards enter into fraternity with the brethren with twenty-three solidi.
6. But if the heir of any craftsman cease to exercise his father's craft, he will pay three solidi on entrance.
7. Also we decree that every brother will dry his cloth where he can.
8. We concede also that if any one have this craft and cannot set up his implements by any chance, let him prepare and make his cloth on the spindle of another.
9. If any one should marry a widow whose husband was of the craft, he will enter the fraternity with three solidi.
10. And every one who would be of this craft will receive it in the presence of the consuls.
11. Whatever is collected in fines and received in entrance fees will be put to the use of the city, and be presented to the consuls....
