This article concerns a significant yet underappreciated argument presented by Alexander Hamilton and Tench Coxe in their 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures in favour of protectionism: the argument from the diversity of natural talents. Whereas historians of economic thought have focused primarily on the Report's articulation of the infant-industry argument, this study reveals that Hamilton and Coxe developed an equally powerful argument predicated on the diversity of natural talents, aptitudes, and dispositions that exist among individuals. According to this argument, since individuals possess distinctive talents, aptitudes, and dispositions, the cultivation of a diverse array of economic pursuits by using protective measures is necessary to allow individuals to exercise their unique qualities. By undertaking an examination of the primary texts of Hamilton and Coxe, including drafts of the Report, this article suggests that Tench Coxe, rather than Hamilton, was the architect behind the argument, having expressed similar ideas as early as 1789. The article then presents the case that this argument represents a significant departure from Adam Smith's economic thinking. Whereas Smith downplays natural differences in individual talents and genius, Hamilton and Coxe see these differences as something fundamental and inherent to mankind, and this directly led to divergent conclusions concerning international trade policy. The article therefore challenges existing scholarship which has overstated Smith's influence on American economic thought, and reveals how early American protectionist thought rested on distinctively different theoretical foundations that would influence later American protectionist thinkers in the nineteenth century.
The repeal of the Corn Laws by Britain in 1846 was preceded by fierce debates on trade policy both within and outside Parliament. Among political economists, the controversy was sparked by Torrens's plea for retaliatory duties against the countries that imposed restrictions on British goods. The suggestion aroused contempt among free trade advocates, such as Senior, who accused Torrens of reviving outdated mercantile ideas. Amid the fray, a broad version of Say's Law, Hume's price-specie-flow mechanism, as well as Adam Smith's defence of the system of natural liberty, proved essential tools for the free traders' arguments. Torrens's vision of a British Zollverein, owing to the highly theoretical nature of his reasoning, gained little traction among British legislators, and eventually faded out after the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws.
Discussion in this paper focuses on Stan Metcalfe's contribution to the development of evolutionary price theory by analysing price determination as the outcome of a competitive process. Metcalfe develops Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction into a process of differential firm growth. Firms that grow relative to their industry demonstrate fitness, much as subspecies that grow relative to their population demonstrate fitness in evolutionary biology. Firm pricing and investment behaviour are thereby connected to the evolutionary theory of natural selection, providing the foundation for a truly evolutionary theory of price determination.
Walter Lippmann was a prominent public intellectual on economic policy in the early twentieth century. Despite his immense influence on both popular and academic discourse, scholarly attention has not extensively explored how his intellectual exchanges with academic economists influenced his thinking. We survey Lippmann's correspondence with prominent economists to trace the development of his political economy. These exchanges suggest that he was an original thinker who, rather than adhere to a single orthodoxy, synthesised diverse perspectives by reading and engaging with a broad range of economists. This study clarifies Lippmann's place as a major thinker in the twentieth century political landscape, showing how his active engagement with economists bridged economic theory and contemporary political debate.
The persistence and dissolution of the British open-field community exemplifies a classic case of dynamic property rights transformation under specific historical conditions. Drawing on Barzel's Economic Analysis of Property Rights, this study interprets the open-field village as a property rights community centred on fragmented and incomplete common right. Within specific technological and market constraints, cooperative allocation mechanisms enabled relatively low transaction costs, producing an 'efficient under constraints' arrangement. As markets expanded, new land attributes acquired value, and measurement techniques improved, the costs of maintaining the traditional structure increased, undermining its efficiency. The parliamentary enclosure became a profound process of property rights restructuring, in which state authority separated land attributes from the commons and redefined exclusive private ownership according to market principles. Enclosure represented not only a change in production but also a fundamental reallocation of rights. This historical case illuminates the complex balance between efficiency and equity in institutional change.
This study resurrects and reframes a vital but overlooked aspect of Marx's theoretical framework: his theory of need. Addressing the limitations in Agnes Heller's pioneering work, it introduces the concept of 'regime of need' to highlight the centrality of need in understanding historical and social transformations. The analytical tools of 'fundamental need' and 'dominant need' are developed to examine the economic specifications and characteristics of these regimes. By analysing Marx's original texts, this study demonstrates the intrinsic connection of his theory of need and value theory with broader socio-economic analysis. The proposed framework bridges gaps between Marxist and feminist perspectives in the domestic labour debate, highlighting the theoretical potential of this renewed appreciation of Marx's relevance.
This study aims to highlight Simon N. Patten's pioneering insights into work-leisure balance (WLB) economics, as articulated in his 1893 essay "Cost and Expense." Patten analysed workers' optimal working hours based on their choice between labour and leisure using marginal utility theory, predating the Chicago School's approach. Criticising J. B. Clark's concept of surplus labour, he argued that shorter working hours are rational as the productive power increases. Patten compared his theory with those of A. Marshall and D. Ricardo. His attempt to elucidate WLB can be considered an extension of J.S. Mill's theory of economic dynamics. Although Patten's ideas faded into the background in later years, his sharp insights, derived from traditional theory, were quite modern and still relevant.
This paper reconsiders the typology long used to categorise Marxian crisis theory: the excess commodity theory and the excess capital theory. Theorists supporting the excess capital theory repeatedly criticise the excess commodity theory as ignoring the market forces that restore the balance of supply and demand. Nevertheless, some theories regarded as the excess commodity theory definitely assume the resilience of the market and yet try to find how capital accumulation necessarily falls into some disproportionate state. Therefore, Marxian crisis theory must be differently divided into two: one that emphasises the overaccumulation against labour, indicated in the profit rate, and the other that emphasises the overaccumulation against capital itself, which is shown in the movement of accumulation rate. This reclassification is drawn from two Japanese debates on the crisis theory: the one between Samezo Kuruma and Kozo Uno, and the other between Kuruma and Ryozo Tomizuka.
The author explains how the process of studying for a B.A. in Economics worked at the University of Cambridge when he was an undergraduate there in the period 1974-1977. This was close to the end of the time in which the Cambridge Economics Tripos was taught in a highly pluralistic manner. The teaching system involved much less choice than a typical economics degree does today, and honours classes depended entirely on performance in examinations. Reading mainly consisted of primary sources, with little use of textbooks. Assignments were typically open-ended essay tasks rather than deterministic 'problem set' exercises. Examples of reading material and essay topics are used to show that there was a strong history of economic thought perspective in the teaching process, particularly with macroeconomics, which covered the development of thinking from Keynes's time through to the then-current ideas of the Cambridge Economic Policy Group.
