Can a history of economic doctrines really be said to have a conclusion?

It is obviously impossible to regard the history of any science as complete so long as that science itself is not definitely constituted. This applies to all sciences alike, even to the more advanced—physics, chemistry, and mathematics, for example, all of which are continuously undergoing some modification, abandoning in the course of their progress certain conceptions that were formerly regarded as useful, but which now appear antiquated, and adopting others which, if not entirely new, are at least more comprehensive and more fruitful. And not only is this true of individual sciences, but it is equally true of the very conception of science itself. Progress in the sciences involves a modification of our ideas concerning science. The savant, to-day as of yore, is engaged in the pursuit of truth, but the conception of scientific truth at the beginning of the twentieth century is not what it was at the beginning of the nineteenth, and everything points to still further modifications of that conception in the future. It is scarcely to be expected that political economy, a young science hardly out of its swaddling-clothes, will prove itself less mutable than the sciences already mentioned. All that the historian is permitted to do is to point to the distance already traversed, without pretending to be able to guess the character of the road that still remains to be covered. His object must be to appreciate the nature of the tasks that now await the economist, and for this his study of the efforts put forth in the past, to which the preceding chapters bear record, should prove of some assistance.

A simple analogy will perhaps help us to gauge the kind of impression left upon us by a study of a century and a half of economic ideas. Imagine ourselves looking at a fan spread out in front of us. At the handle the separate radii are so closely packed together that they appear to form a single block. But as the eye travels towards the circumference the branches gradually separate from one another until they finally assume quite divergent positions. But their separation is not complete, and the more they are spread out the easier it is to detect the presence of the tissue that forms a common bond between the various sections of the fan and constitutes the basis of a new unity which is quite as powerful, if not perhaps more so, than the unity which results from their superposition at the base.

So it was with the Physiocrats, and still more with Adam Smith, whose theory of political economy was a doctrine of such beautiful simplicity that the human mind could grasp it at a single glance. But as time went on and the science progressed it was realised that the unity which characterised it at first was more apparent than real. The contradictory theories which Smith had seemed able to reconcile gave rise to new currents of thought, which tended to drift farther and farther apart as they assumed a greater degree of independence. Conflicting theories of distribution and of value began to take the field, and quarrels arose over the relative merits of the abstract and the historical method, or the claims of society and the rights of the individual. With a view to self-defence, each of these schools took its own path, which it followed with varied fortune, including not a few setbacks. Each of them also surrounded itself with a network of observations and inductions, thus bringing into the common fund a wealth of new truths and useful conclusions. All this has resulted in the gradual formation, around each great current of economic thought, of a thick enveloping layer of great resistance and of increasing extent, which constitutes a kind of common scientific matrix uniting them together, and underneath which may still be detected the salient features of the great systems. What strikes us now is not the multiplicity of branches which go to make up the fan, but the presence of the common tissue in which, especially towards the circumference, the different radii seem to lose themselves and to disappear altogether. In other words, the sum total of acquired truths is the only legacy left us by the various systems of the past, and this is the only thing that interests us to-day.

Hence one result of so much discussion and polemical warfare has been the discovery of some common ground upon which all economists, whatever their social and political aspirations, can meet. This common ground is the domain of economic science—a science that is concerned, not with the presentation of what ought to be, but with the explanation and the thorough understanding of what actually exists. The superiority of a theory is measured solely by its explanatory power. It matters little whether its author be Interventionist or Liberal, Protectionist or Free Trader, Socialist or Individualist—everyone must necessarily bow before an exact observation or a scientific explanation.

But while these divergent schools tend to be lost in the unity of a more fully comprehended science, we see the emergence of other divisions, less scientific perhaps, but much more fertile so far as the progress of the science itself is concerned. It seems as if a new kind of fan arrangement were making its appearance underneath the old.

This is obviously the case with regard to method, for example, where the separation between pure and descriptive economics, or between the theoretical systematisation and the mere observation of concrete phenomena, is becoming very pronounced. Both kinds of research are equally necessary, and demand different mental qualities which are very seldom found combined in the same person. Economic science, however, cannot afford to dispense either with theory or observation. The desire to seize hold of the chain of economic phenomena and to unravel its secret connections is as strong as ever it was. On the other hand, in view of the transformation and the daily modifications which industry everywhere seems to be undergoing, it is useless to imagine that we can dispense with the task of observing and describing these. The two methods are developing and progressing together, and the violent quarrels as to their respective merits appear to be definitely laid at rest.

Accordingly what we find is a segmentation of economic science into a number of distinct sciences, each of which tends to become more or less autonomous. Such separation does not necessarily imply a conflict of opinion, but is simply the outcome of division of labour. At the outset of its career the whole of political economy was included within the compass of one or two volumes, and all those facts and theories of which an economist was supposed to have special knowledge were, according to Say and his disciples, easily grouped under the three heads of Production, Consumption, and Distribution. But since then the science has been broken up into a number of distinct branches. The term “physics,” which was formerly employed as a name for one of the exact sciences, is just now little better than a collective name used to designate a number of special sciences, such as electricity, optics, etc., each of which might claim the lifelong devotion of the student. Similarly “political economy” has just become a vague but useful term to denote a number of studies which often differ widely from one another. The theory of prices and the theory of distribution have undergone such modifications as entitle them to be regarded as separate studies. Social economics has carved out a domain of its own and is now leading a separate existence, the theory of population has assumed the dimensions of a special science known as demography, and the theory of taxation is now known as the science of finance. Statistics, occupying the borderland of these various sciences, has its own peculiar method of procedure. Descriptions of the commercial and industrial mechanism of banks and exchanges, the classification of the forms of industry and the study of its transformations are related to political economy much as zoology, descriptive botany, and morphology are related to the science of natural history. And although a different name must not always be taken as evidence of a different science, there is little doubt about the existence of the separate sciences already enumerated. The difficulty rather is to grasp the connection between them and to realise the nature of that fundamental unity which binds them all together.

But there still remains a wide region over the whole of which divergences exist and conflicts continue, and where, moreover, they will probably never cease. This is the realm of social and political economics.

Despite the gradual rise of a consensus of scientific opinion among economists, the divergences concerning the object that should be pursued and the means employed to achieve that end are as pronounced as ever. Each of the chief doctrines of which we have given an exposition in the course of this work has its body of representatives. Liberals, Communists, Interventionists, State and Christian Socialists continue to preach their differing ideals and to advocate different methods of procedure. On the question of the science itself, however, they are all united. The arguments upon which they base their contentions are largely borrowed from sources other than scientific. Moral and religious beliefs, political or social convictions, individual preference or sentiment, personal experience or interest—these are among the considerations determining the orientation of each. The earlier half of the nineteenth century witnessed the science of political economy making common cause with one particular doctrine, namely, Liberalism. The alliance proved most unfortunate. The time when economic doctrines were expected to lend support to some given policy is for ever gone by. But the lesson has not been lost, and everybody realises that nothing could be more dangerous for the development of the science than to link its teaching to the tenets of some particular school. At the same time the science might conceivably furnish valuable information to the politician by enabling him to foresee the results of such and such a measure; and it is to be hoped that such predictions, all too uncertain as yet, may, accordingly, become more precise in the future.

We cannot, then, suppose that the various currents of opinion to-day known as Liberalism, Socialism, Solidarism, Syndicalism, and Anarchism are likely to disappear in the immediate future. They may be given other names, perhaps, but they will always continue to exist in some form or other, simply because they correspond to some profound tendency in human nature or to certain permanent collective interests which alternately sway mankind.

We cannot pretend to regret this. Uniformity of belief is an illusory ideal, and from a purely practical point of view we should be sorry to see the day when there will be no conflict of opinion even about those causes or those methods which we hold most dear.

We may sum up our conclusions as follows: From a scientific standpoint unity is likely to become more pronounced and collaboration much more general than in the past, thanks to the adoption of more scientific methods.

In the domain of practice the variety of economic ideals and the conflict between them is likely to continue.

Such, it seems to us, will be the spectacle presented by the political economy of the future.

Thus the impression obtained from a perusal of this history of economic doctrines is, if not somewhat melancholy, at least sufficient to justify a certain degree of humility. So many doctrines that we thought definitely established have disappeared altogether, and so many that we thought completely overthrown have been rehabilitated. Those that die do not seem altogether dead, somehow, and those that are revived are not quite the same.

What the science and its teachers need most of all is full and complete liberty—liberty to follow whatever method suits them best and to accept whatever theory attracts them most; liberty to choose their own ideals and to formulate their own systems—for systems and ideals, by bringing sentiment into play, may occasionally prove very stimulating even to scientific research. Nothing could be more harmful than the dogmatism which the science has only recently escaped. In this matter, unfortunately, no school and no country is entirely above criticism.

Sismondi used to complain that Liberalism, after it had achieved its triumph, had attempted to convert political economy into a system of orthodoxy. But Liberalism is not the only doctrine against which a similar charge might be brought. It is only a few years since Schmoller, the chief of the German Historical school, in an address delivered as Rector of Berlin University, declared that neither Marxians nor the disciples of Smith could in future be regarded as accredited teachers of the science. Does the German Historical school really wish to revive that ostracism from which it was itself one of the first to suffer? Neither can we, as Frenchmen, pride ourselves upon having been less exclusive. The indifference or even the actual hostility with which the Historical school was for a long time treated does very little credit to us. Moreover, that same intolerance of which “bourgeois economics” was so justly accused, is it not to be met with in an equally extravagant fashion in the socialism of to-day? The ultra-dogmatism of the Liberal school can be easily paralleled from the history of Marxism and the frantic efforts made by some socialists to prevent other Marxians making a breach in the doctrine. If there is one lesson more than another that emerges from a study of the history of economic doctrines it is the necessity for a more critical spirit and a more watchful attitude, always ready to test any new truths that present themselves, to extend a hearty welcome to every fresh observation or new experience, thus enabling the science to enlarge its scope and gain a deeper significance without sacrificing any of its essential tenets.