ATKINSON, William. The State of the science of political economy investigated; wherein is shewn the defective character of the arguments which have hitherto been advanced for elucidating the laws of the formation of wealth. London, Whittaker & Co., 1838.
8vo, pp. vii, 73, [1, blank]; complete with the half-title; small closed tears at inner margin of first few leaves where removed from binding, but a good copy; disbound.
First edition. This work is divided into three parts. In the first, Atkinson poses the question: ‘what would be the effect on the capital of a country of abandoning any given home trade, and adopting a foreign in its place?’. He then goes on to give a critical commentary of the positions of Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, McCulloch and Scrope with regard to this question. Part II is devoted to Malthus’s standpoint, and in part III the author declares that ‘the object of this report is accomplished. By the arguments it contains, we have proved that the writers who have attempted to develop the laws, by which the commercial intercourse of mankind should be regulated, have failed in their efforts to construct a solid and true system’ (p. 72).Atkinson was ‘a Fellow of the Statistical Society, from which he retired in 1844. One of the early assailants of the classical school, he lays great stress on its inability to agree upon questions of population, of the preference of home over foreign trade, and its want of moral and religious principle. Though his own arguments in favour of protection are founded upon a rather abstruse “law of proportions”, they have been welcomed by American economists’ (Palgrave).
Goldsmiths’ 30272; Hollander 3028; Kress C.4551; not in Mattioli.
£550
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