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Page 12 - Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men.
Page 16 - When at length a true system of Economics comes to be established, it will be seen that that able but wrong-headed man, David Ricardo, shunted the car of Economic science on to a wrong line, a line, however, on which it was further urged towards confusion by his equally able and wrong-headed admirer John Stuart Mill.
Page 6 - higgling of the market' was an impossibility simply because the laws of the market were not left to the free arbitrament of the contracting parties. Under the supposition that the interests of the whole community would be best subserved by avoiding the dangers of an unrestricted competition, the government interfered to ordain periodical enactments of customary or reasonable prices — reasonable, that is, for both producer and consumer.
Page 10 - Give free play to the natural laws of liberty and equality, and prosperity will soon shine in all its refulgence on the expanse of national life. The great statesman and economist, Turgot, undoubtedly made a move in the right direction in the celebrated six edicts of 1776, which abolished the guilds and the corvees, and reformed the corn-laws. The economistes, indeed, were indefatigable in their opposition to the abuses of the powerful to the privileges of the few. In the place of restriction they...
Page 49 - The ethical school of economists aims, then, to direct in a certain definite manner, so far as may be, this economic, social growth of mankind. Economists who adhere to this school wish to ascertain the laws of progress, and to show men how to make use of them.
Page 6 - ... than his neighbor, and thus undersell him. The great offences of mediaeval trade in England, for instance, were regrating, forestalling, and engrossing, — buying in order to sell at enhanced prices, intercepting goods on the way to market to procure them more cheaply, and keeping back wares purchased at wholesale in order to strike a more favorable bargain subsequently. But, above all, great solicitude was shown for the interests of consumers, and every precaution was observed to preclude the...
Page 19 - Hildebrand — proclaimed the necessity of treating economics from the historical stand-point. They initiated the new movement whose leading principles may be thus formulated : 1. It discards the exclusive use of the deductive method, and intonates the necessity of historical and statistical treatment. 2. It denies the existence of immutable natural laws in economics, calling attention to the interdependence of theories and institutions, and showing that different epochs or countries require different...
Page 108 - IN every department of human affairs, Practice long precedes Science : systematic enquiry into the modes of action of the powers of nature, is the tardy product of a long course of efforts to use those powers for practical ends.
Page 9 - The confusion was heightened by the excesses of the monopolistic companies and the degeneration of the craftguilds, which now, far from being welcome auxiliaries to the municipal administration, had become oppressive, exclusive bodies, with an hereditary, caste-like organization. What wonder, then, that a sect of men should arise who sought refuge from this intolerable pandemonium of perpetual interference in the soothing doctrine of absolute liberty? The times were ripe for a reaction, — a reaction...
Page 50 - Political economy may ... be defined as the science which determines what laws men ought to adopt in order that they may, with the least possible exertion, procure the greatest abundance of things useful for the satisfaction of their wants, may distribute them justly and consume them rationally.