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Capitalism's Contradictions
Studies of Economic Thought Before and After Marx
Henryk Grossman, Rick Kuhn
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Capitalism's Contradictions
Studies of Economic Thought Before and After Marx
Henryk Grossman, Rick Kuhn
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Collected and translated by Deutscher Prize-Winning Grossman biographer Rick Kuhn, assembles several of Henryk Grossman's most important essays, and serves as an introduction to his project of recovering Marx. Grossman highlights distinctive features of Marx's economic theory by contrasting it with the views of his forerunners, from Adam Smith to Sismondi.
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EconomĂaSous-sujet
TeorĂa econĂłmicaSimonde de Sismondi and His Economic Theories
(A New Interpretation of His Thought)134
Translated from the French by Ian Birchall
This year we have the opportunity to commemorate several great economists, for it is the centenary of the death of [David] Ricardo, the fortieth anniversary of Karl Marxâs death, the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith and the hundred and fiftieth of that of Simonde de Sismondi. Today I propose to draw your attention to the last of these. Compared with the numerous studies devoted to the physiocrats and the classical English economists,135 those dealing with Sismondi are relatively few in number. And although a host of excellent authors in more or less recent times, such as Adolphe Blanqui, [Julius] Kautz, [Hugo] Eisenhart, Charles PĂ©rin, [John Kells] Ingram, Ludwig Elster, Luigi Cossa, [Alfred Victor] Espinas, [Heinrich] Herkner, [Albert] Aftalion, [Joseph] Rambaud, Hector Denis and Charles Rist, have attempted to expound Sismondiâs ideas, those studies we do possess have not succeeded, in my view, in giving sufficient attention to his theoretical thinking.136 In fact, while they pay ample homage to this honorary professor of the University of Wilno137 and draw out his importance as the creator of new social policy, he is relegated to secondary status as a theoretician. It is precisely on this last point that I differ from generally accepted opinions. To set them right I will try to characterize in turn Sismondiâs method, his theory and his social policy.
1. Sismondiâs Method
As far as method was concerned, it previously seemed that Sismondiâs viewpoint had been clearly established. It was generally claimed that Sismondi was an opponent of the abstract and deductive method and that his merit consisted solely in the fact that he had spoken out critically against the abstract and deductive method of the classical school and in particular of Ricardo, juxtaposing it to the method of historical and descriptive induction. According to Denis, âSismondiâs basic criticism of the [classical] school is for its abstract and deductive method.â138 Charles Rist in turn makes a very similar judgment. âSismondiâs disagreement was not upon the theoretical principles of political economy. So far as these were concerned, he declared himself a disciple of Adam Smith. He merely disagreed with the method, the object and hence the practical conclusions of the classical school.â âRicardo . . . is accused of having introduced the abstract method into the science ⊠his spirit shrank from admitting those abstractions which Ricardo and his disciples demanded from him. Political economy, he thought, . . . was to be based on experience, upon history and observation. Human conditions were to be studied in detail.â According to Rist, Sismondiâs critique is directed against generalization. âIt also prepared the way for that conception of political economy upon the discovery of which the German historical school so prided itself at a later date.â139
Admittedly one can find in Sismondi many more passages similar to those noted by Rist. But we can see that the latter has stuck to a literal reading of Sismondi and has not grasped the spirit, that he has not seized the very essence of his method. Having asserted that Sismondi is an opponent of the abstract method, a few lines later he criticizes him for a certain inconsistency, because âSismondi himself was forced to have recourse to it. It is true that he used it with considerable awkwardness and his failure to construct or to discuss abstract theories perhaps explains his preference for the other method.â140
If there is an inconsistency, I venture to say that it is not in Sismondi but rather in Ristâs standpoint and his rather scholastic logic. According to Rist, Sismondiâs methodological merit entails the critique of the abstract method and the application of the historical and descriptive method. But then Rist goes on to say that Sismondi âwas forced to have recourseâ to the abstract method.
Is it true that in Sismondi we are faced with contradictions and that these are a sign that he âcreates . . . confusionâ and has a âhesitating mindââas Rist assures us?141 To concede this would make our job a lot easier, all the more so since Sismondi is a powerful individual whose enormous influence on the development of economic thought, as well as on several great thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, [Pierre-Joseph] Proudhon, Karl Marx, Ămile Laveley and so on, becomes more obvious with every passing day, as Hector Denis has quite rightly noted.142
If it were solely a matter of showing the need for an inductive, historical descriptive method, Sismondiâs achievement in this respect would be quite dubious. In Germany [Johann Gottlieb] Fichte, it is true, applied an abstract constructive method to his ârational state,â that is, the state as it ought to be. But where it was a question of economic relations, âreal states existing at present,â he demanded an explanation of âhow everything that is came to be as it is,â and it was for history to respond to this question, âsince indeed all historical research of deep penetration neither can nor should be anything else than a genetic answer to the causal question: how has the present state of things arisen and what are the reasons that the world formed itself into what we find before us?â143 In France it is Charles Ganilh who should take the credit, albeit problematic, for having opposed the abstract method. This economist, four years before the appearance of Sismondiâs book, published a program for a statistical and descriptive method. In his work he criticizes Adam Smith and the physiocrats for using an âambitious methodâ that, as a result of âtheir predilection for rational and speculative theoriesâ and âby means of hypotheses, conjectures and analogies,â aims to construct âgeneral lawsâ by a means that âis independent of facts and experience.â Political economy is âa practical science.â Now âAdam Smithâs system of unlimited freedomâ is âa speculative theory.â âWhen one looks carefully at Smithâs admirable work, one finds there only assertions which do not fit the facts, conjectures with no basis in reality and unfounded hypotheses.â To this method Ganilh contrasts the descriptive method and sees the solution in the progress of statistics.144 It seems that he was inspired by the famous statistical treatise of Patrick Colquhoun (1814), which showed the distribution of wealth among the various classes in the population of England.145 âThus it seems to me that from the table of the present wealth of a people . . . one can progress not only to knowledge of the causes of this peopleâs wealth but even to the establishment of the principles that create modern wealth and to the true theory of political economy.â146 He defines the relationship between statistics and economics as follows: âThe former accumulates the materials and the latter builds the edifice of the science.â If the speculative theories that he criticizes âreasoned before having observed the facts . . . asserted instead of calculating,â the method advocated by Ganilh leads in short to a rigorous theory, âto mathematical certainty.â He briefly indicates the path to be followed. âWe observe facts that can be subjected to observation and calculation and that, as a result, give economic science the right to lay claim to the same precision as the physical and mathematical sciences.â
Thus it was not Sismondi who was the first to juxtapose a scientific ideal based on the statistical-descriptive method to the abstract and deductive method of the classical economists. However, I will not spend time discussing once more the banal question as to whether political economy should use in...