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Classical Economics Reconsidered
This reconsideration of the macroeconomics, microeconomics, methodology, and social philosophy of the classical economists has been a small gem on the history of economic thought, written in a way accessible to students, while having much to teach scholars. The reissue of this book twenty years after its original publication is a tribute to the enduring relevance of the questions raised during the formative period of economics and to the skill with which the author analyzes them.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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279 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Sowell
88 books5,555 followersThomas Sowell is an American economist, social philosopher, and political commentator. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he became a well-known voice in the American conservative movement as a prominent black conservative. He was a recipient of the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2002.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina and grew up in Harlem, New York City. Due to poverty and difficulties at home, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and worked various odd jobs, eventually serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. Afterward, he took night classes at Howard University and then attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University the next year and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. In his academic career, he held professorships at Cornell University, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked at think tanks including the Urban Institute. Since 1977, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.
Sowell was an important figure to the conservative movement during the Reagan era, influencing fellow economist Walter E. Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was offered a position as Federal Trade Commissioner in the Ford administration, and was considered for posts including U.S. Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, but declined both times.
Sowell is the author of more than 45 books (including revised and new editions) on a variety of subjects including politics, economics, education and race, and he has been a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers. His views are described as conservative, especially on social issues; libertarian, especially on economics; or libertarian-conservative. He has said he may be best labeled as a libertarian, though he disagrees with the "libertarian movement" on some issues, such as national defense.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 29, 2014
This is a refreshing read, because it lacks the fierce right-wing attitude that Sowell has become associated with. Probably because it's not really intended for the general audience. It's a dispassionate look at some of the deepest methodological, economic and philosophical questions surrounding classical economics. It's also a good showcase of Sowell's erudition and scholarship.
It assumes that the reader is aware of about 300 years of economic history. It uses phrases and terminology that is very technical. This is not a shortcoming, just something to keep in mind.
What you get out of it depends on your interests. It is most useful for scholars in the field. I enjoyed it, with my moderate knowledge of the area, but I would not recommend it for a lay reader.
It assumes that the reader is aware of about 300 years of economic history. It uses phrases and terminology that is very technical. This is not a shortcoming, just something to keep in mind.
What you get out of it depends on your interests. It is most useful for scholars in the field. I enjoyed it, with my moderate knowledge of the area, but I would not recommend it for a lay reader.
October 13, 2018
People have tended to only vaguely define classical economics, and in an egocentric way. Marx, for example, “conceived of the classical economists as forerunners of Marxian economics”, and Keynes who identified them with beliefs that “most of the classical and neoclassical economists were quite explicit” about not believing.
Sowell uses Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill as the “three men who were clearly classical in every sense”. He also included J.B . Say, T.R. Malthus, and Sir Edward West as “others who contributed key concepts to classical economics without sharing all of its methods and conclusions.” Finally, he includes Robert Torrens, Nassau Senior, and Karl Marx as “economics who did not make contributions of this magnitude, but who shared with Say and Malthus the characteristic of being classical in some respects but not in others.”
This is basically an overview of the most common criticisms of classical economics and how the criticisms stand up to the actual writings of the classical economists.
One of the important insights from this book is how much of the economic insights of political leaders such as probably Donald Trump and definitely Barack Obama—and journalists such as Jonathan M. Katz—are mired in economic theory that was outdated even during the time of the classical economists, mercantilism. Sowell writes that mercantilism has “crumbled in practice”, but from its description it seems to remain current at least among politicians and journalists.
It consisted of “an enormous array of detailed economic controls designed to support an export surplus, largely at the expense of the lower classes by keeping labor cheap…
“The mercantilists conceived of wealth in competitive terms, as something taken by one from another…”
And growth comes when we “sell more to strangers than we consume of theirs in value.”
Of interest to me after reading Frederick Douglass as well as modern memes that backhandedly compliment slavery, even during the period when slavery was current economists didn’t believe that it generated economic progress. Slavery was
and generates “attitudes inimical to economic progress…”.
Which basically agrees with Douglass’s observations on moving from the south to the north.
But if you believe with mercantilists and modern politicians/journalists that a planned economy is superior to a free market economy, then of course you’ll believe that slavery will create wealth rather than destroy wealth and retard or reverse wealth creation.
There is also an understandable description of Malthus’s theory on population growth necessarily outracing food production.
Sowell uses Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill as the “three men who were clearly classical in every sense”. He also included J.B . Say, T.R. Malthus, and Sir Edward West as “others who contributed key concepts to classical economics without sharing all of its methods and conclusions.” Finally, he includes Robert Torrens, Nassau Senior, and Karl Marx as “economics who did not make contributions of this magnitude, but who shared with Say and Malthus the characteristic of being classical in some respects but not in others.”
This is basically an overview of the most common criticisms of classical economics and how the criticisms stand up to the actual writings of the classical economists.
One of the important insights from this book is how much of the economic insights of political leaders such as probably Donald Trump and definitely Barack Obama—and journalists such as Jonathan M. Katz—are mired in economic theory that was outdated even during the time of the classical economists, mercantilism. Sowell writes that mercantilism has “crumbled in practice”, but from its description it seems to remain current at least among politicians and journalists.
It consisted of “an enormous array of detailed economic controls designed to support an export surplus, largely at the expense of the lower classes by keeping labor cheap…
“The mercantilists conceived of wealth in competitive terms, as something taken by one from another…”
And growth comes when we “sell more to strangers than we consume of theirs in value.”
Of interest to me after reading Frederick Douglass as well as modern memes that backhandedly compliment slavery, even during the period when slavery was current economists didn’t believe that it generated economic progress. Slavery was
“inefficient and unproductive” due to its limited incentives.
and generates “attitudes inimical to economic progress…”.
Which basically agrees with Douglass’s observations on moving from the south to the north.
But if you believe with mercantilists and modern politicians/journalists that a planned economy is superior to a free market economy, then of course you’ll believe that slavery will create wealth rather than destroy wealth and retard or reverse wealth creation.
There is also an understandable description of Malthus’s theory on population growth necessarily outracing food production.
January 25, 2011
I would not recommend this for anyone who does not already have a basic understanding of Economics, and even then, only if you are really interested in economics... A great one to read, also by Thomas Sowell, is Basic Economics. Read that one. This one, well, it's pretty dry but does have a lot of information about what classical economists (Adam Smith, John Mill) really thought, and it is a little different than the stereotypes we use today to easily identify them.
July 12, 2024
SOWELL'S SURVEY OF THE EARLIER ECONOMISTS
Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is an economist, social theorist, political philosopher, columnist, and author (known particularly for his books on race and economics, such as Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Race And Culture: A World View, Ethnic America: A History, etc.), who has long been associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He wrote in the Preface to the 1994 reprint of this 1974 book, "For a slim volume of four essays to survive for more than a decade, and then to be re-issued 20 years after its original publication, is not simply a matter of personal gratification for the author but, more importantly, a tribute to the continuing vitality of the enduring questions addressed by the classical founders (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Jean-Baptiste Say) of economics."
Karl Marx was the one who coined the term, "classical economists," but John Maynard Keynes' use of the term (in his The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money) is perhaps the most famous. But Sowell argues that there were "serious questions" raised as to whether ANY economists "had ever believed the things attributed by Keynes to the 'classical economists.'" (Pg. 5)
Sowell observes that although Ricardo and James Mill served briefly in Parliament, "they were essentially anti-politicians in a political institution, and their distaste for it was apparent." (Pg. x) He also notes the participation of these economists in progressive movements of their day: e.g., schools for the poor, birth control, and child labor laws. (Pg. 29)
He states that Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill "all recognized that any specific, empirical measure of value was arbitrary, and ultimately had to be justified by its usefulness rather than its logic alone." (Pg. 102)
Sowell's book (his second; written long before his more famous books of later times) seems more like an "academic" work (e.g., like something written in pursuit of a graduate degree), but it is nevertheless an interesting survey of these thinkers---even if the insights it gives into Sowell's own ideas is rather minimal.
Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is an economist, social theorist, political philosopher, columnist, and author (known particularly for his books on race and economics, such as Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Race And Culture: A World View, Ethnic America: A History, etc.), who has long been associated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He wrote in the Preface to the 1994 reprint of this 1974 book, "For a slim volume of four essays to survive for more than a decade, and then to be re-issued 20 years after its original publication, is not simply a matter of personal gratification for the author but, more importantly, a tribute to the continuing vitality of the enduring questions addressed by the classical founders (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Jean-Baptiste Say) of economics."
Karl Marx was the one who coined the term, "classical economists," but John Maynard Keynes' use of the term (in his The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money) is perhaps the most famous. But Sowell argues that there were "serious questions" raised as to whether ANY economists "had ever believed the things attributed by Keynes to the 'classical economists.'" (Pg. 5)
Sowell observes that although Ricardo and James Mill served briefly in Parliament, "they were essentially anti-politicians in a political institution, and their distaste for it was apparent." (Pg. x) He also notes the participation of these economists in progressive movements of their day: e.g., schools for the poor, birth control, and child labor laws. (Pg. 29)
He states that Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill "all recognized that any specific, empirical measure of value was arbitrary, and ultimately had to be justified by its usefulness rather than its logic alone." (Pg. 102)
Sowell's book (his second; written long before his more famous books of later times) seems more like an "academic" work (e.g., like something written in pursuit of a graduate degree), but it is nevertheless an interesting survey of these thinkers---even if the insights it gives into Sowell's own ideas is rather minimal.
April 24, 2016
Four essays covering essential topics in Economics written in such a way that a lay person can understand.
Written at an advanced level, don't get me wrong, but it's accessible.
Written at an advanced level, don't get me wrong, but it's accessible.
February 21, 2009
I didn't understand a lot of this book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews