10
THK BATTALION
BEHIND ECCNCMICS
py C. t I CATON •
Graduate Student Reviews a Chanjrinjr Order From a Common-Sense Point of View
Economics is a subject alxmt which very little i*
known by the vast majority of people and this fact is.
in our opinion, one that is surely to l>e regretted. It
is a noteworthy fact that people go alxmt their daily
tasks, whether it is in business life or otherwise, with
no notion as to what are the !>est means of solving
their economic problems. As a consequence, we find
that the great masses of people do not have any orga
nised system of handling their finances.
To 1r» sure it would Ik* presumptuous for us to
say that in order for a man to live prosperously he must
be able to comprehend economics from its very begin
ning to its present trends, because that is not true. We
do contend, however, that for the lK*st interest of man
at present and the swiftest furtherance of his future
interest he must have a comprehensive knowledge of
Economic science. ^ ' • -t
Economic science, often referred to as Political
Economy, like all other of present day sciences, has
its beginning in ^centuries past. As a science the lH*gin-
nipgs of Economics were marked by Quesnay anti his
disciples in their doctrines, setting forth the princi
ples embodied in the famous Physiocratic ideas in the
eighteenth century v It doubtless is true that many of
us are more or lfc<s familiar with that underlying prin
ciple known as^the “Net Pnoduct” in which they so
propiciously.ekplmged the idea that tin* only income
known to man was direct from the soils. Their conten
tions were very logical to them because of their limited
concepts, developments and experiences. The absurdi
ty of their concepts are readily perceived by econo
mists of today. Present day economists were not the
ones, however, to discover the many erroneous ideas
of .the Physiocrats. Swiftly following the spread of
their doctrines over Continental Europe was the high
ly praised author known to us even today as the “father
of economics’’, Adam Smith.
Adam Smith’s doctrines were superior to the doc-
•’kfines of the Physiocrats in that his concept of pro
duction was extended to include not only agriculture
but manufacturing, and various types of businesses
were also included. To him anything was pnxiuctive
that could l>e used in exchange for other commodities,
but he failed to grasp the idea of utility and conse
quently said that any form of personal service such
as the doctor, tfie dentist or the lawyer were not pro
ductive. * . '
As an interpreter of Adam Smith to Continental
Europe J. B. Say added some few new slants to politi
cal economy. „ f
The next great figure in the development of Eco
nomic science was Ricardo, whose contentions are given
it
cognizance even today in the main of our orthodox
structure of economics. Ricardo added to the conten
tions of Adam Smith in many respects, an example of
which is his extension of the idea of productivity .to
include dentists, doctors, and other similar types of
professions. He saw that utility must necessarily'have
a place in the process of production. Thus, in the ex
change of commodities he felt that the pnxiuctive
process was Ix'ing carried on: that when one profit
by a trade the other one involved necessarily in t
trade did not have to entail a loss at his gain. This is
m direct contrast to the ideas of tin* Mercantilists
when they contended that when one nation gained by
foreign trade it necessitated a corresponding loss by\
the nation trading with them.
Many other economists have added to the doc
trines of Ricardo and through the-decades have sifted
and rebuilded until we have what is commonly referred
to as the orth<xlox sch<x>l of thinkers.
A corresponding parallelism may be shown in the
development or evolution of man as a sm-ial creature.
History and the study of ancient man reveal that he
went about solving his problems in very much the
• same manner
comparable
|K*cts, but that is due to the fact that the evolution-of,
man mentally has taken the stow form of profiting by ,
the experiences and accomplishments of his predeces
sors.^ ami that alone. In the beginning man was de-
4>endent upon the kindness of nature to supply, without
his aid, the food, clothing and shelter that he utilized.'
Only through a gradual process commonly descrlKeJ^
ii solving ms prooiems in very muen ine
tier as we do t<xlay. To be sure they were nit
e to man as he exists today, in many rejti*-
of trial v and error
ami
was man enahfed V
improve on what nature
as the process
cultivate and preserve
has provided him with. f
The entirety of man’s social evolution has l>een
that of his regulations of his conduct in life, hut h«*
has not stopped with that. He had his religion. Religion
of man has also l>een evolutionary. At first he worship
ped tboae objects of nature that he saw gave him sus
tenance. That, seemingly, was a natural thing for
him to do. As a consequence-of man’s worship of these
things he had many gods. As the ages hold into the
past he narrows his gods - and limits them in numbuj^
until the present-day concept is that of one G<xl, siP
preme and all-powerful.
Thus, we see that man evolved through many
stages' and has proved himself the most susceptible of
all the creatures of the earth. His determination to
not be conquered has caused him to be conquerer; his
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