DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0038
II.
THE CONDITIONS OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS.
Faults of early economists—Importa7ice of study of distribution of wealth
—Shortsightedness of some economists as to inventions and value of
labour-—Division of employments—Skill of 'agricultural labourers—
Agricultural inventions—Babbagc on Adam Smith—Effect of divi-
sion of employments on continuity of labour—Causes of the growth
and decay of nations chiefly economic.
I shall be engaged this morning in discussing some of the
earliest common-places of political economy, positions which
though constantly found to be far from exhaustive, are as far as
they go accurate. For the conditions of economic progress are
very much the same as the analysis of the production of wealth.
I have on previous occasions pointed out how grave an error I
think it is, to make this part of the analysis precede that of the
distribution of wealth, for this latter is the true centre of all
economic inquiry. But tradition goes a great distance with most
people, and there was an honest reason for this confusion of
order. I am not, indeed, quite clear that the excellent people who
were responsible for the confusion, as I deem it, either foresaw the
consequence, or imagined that the process which they adopted
would give force to the very mischief which they strove to ex-
pound and condemn. But when people begin to discuss and
enlarge upon the processes by which wealth is produced, they are
THE CONDITIONS OF ECONOMIC PROGRESS.
Faults of early economists—Importa7ice of study of distribution of wealth
—Shortsightedness of some economists as to inventions and value of
labour-—Division of employments—Skill of 'agricultural labourers—
Agricultural inventions—Babbagc on Adam Smith—Effect of divi-
sion of employments on continuity of labour—Causes of the growth
and decay of nations chiefly economic.
I shall be engaged this morning in discussing some of the
earliest common-places of political economy, positions which
though constantly found to be far from exhaustive, are as far as
they go accurate. For the conditions of economic progress are
very much the same as the analysis of the production of wealth.
I have on previous occasions pointed out how grave an error I
think it is, to make this part of the analysis precede that of the
distribution of wealth, for this latter is the true centre of all
economic inquiry. But tradition goes a great distance with most
people, and there was an honest reason for this confusion of
order. I am not, indeed, quite clear that the excellent people who
were responsible for the confusion, as I deem it, either foresaw the
consequence, or imagined that the process which they adopted
would give force to the very mischief which they strove to ex-
pound and condemn. But when people begin to discuss and
enlarge upon the processes by which wealth is produced, they are