HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
(3d and enlarged edition) by Lewis H! Haney 'O3. The Macmillan Company New York, 1936.
Dr. Haney's book long has been a leading work in the field of economic philosophy. This edition has been thoroughly rewritten and many of the chapters contain new materials. Three additional studies appear on Bentham and His Principle ofUtility, Marshall and His System of Equilibrium, and Veblen and Institutionalism. The entire book is written in a most readable style and the reader's attention is firmly held to difficult subject matter. The exposition is especially lucid. The organization of the materials is logical and thorough. These facts help explain the general popularity of the earlier editions and their wide use.
This book combines a scholarly account of the development of economic theories with an ample setting of environmental forces affecting the exponents of the many schools and theories. It is not an easy matter to select the salient features of economic doctrines, to present them without bias, and to show their influences on latter-day thought and conduct. But Dr. Haney has succeeded unusually well in these respects and has been open-minded in his analyses. He states that he belongs to no school of economic thought.
The contents of the book include sections on the importance of the history of economic thought, economic thought before the science of economics, the founders of economic science, an account of recent leading schools, and a most useful summary and set of conclusions. The professional economist will be pleased to follow the historical traces of different explanations of value, aspects of price determination, principles of economic and social welfare. The American layman will be interested in reading background analyses for rugged individualism, foreign trade and the tariff, sound money, wage problems, government in business, socialism and communism, and even the New Deal.
This work begins with the economic ideas of the ancients including Plato and Aristotle; then it moves through medieval economic thought, the dawn of modern economic thought, the development of economics as a science including the leading schools and their exponents (especially for England, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and the United States); and it concludes with such well-known names as J. B. Clark, Fisher, Fetter, Ely, Seligman, Davenport, and Veblen. The chapters on Mercantilism (7), Adam Smith (10), Ricardo (13), John Stuart Mill (23), Scientific Socialism (24), the Austrian School (31), Alfred Marshall (32), and Veblen (36) appear as outstanding portions of the book. The social scientist and the philosopher will find this newest revision a most authoritative and useful reference.
