Who first called economics 'the dismal science'?
April 26th 2010 08:09
Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881
It was another time, another world, in December 1849 when Thomas Carlyle wrote his name into history by describing economics as "the dismal science". Carlyle, described variously as a teacher, historian and satirical writer, used the term in an article entitled "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", in which he argued for the reintroduction of slavery as a means to regulate the labour market in the West Indies.
Yes, reintroduction. Mr Carlyle, whom many may consider to have been an endearingly witty person to coin such a phrase, was not an endearingly enlightened man.
Economists of the time spent much energy discussing the relationship between population and welfare, based on the 18th century postulations by Thomas Robert Malthus. Malthus, a British scholar and political theorist, thought that economic good times must always lead to economic bad times because good times will produce population growth which will create food shortages, poverty and hardship.
This was used by Carlyle and others as an argument against abolishing slavery because that, they said, would increase the rate of population growth.
Carlyle's opponents in this thinking were led by John Stuart Mill, who dared to suggest that it was institutions rather than population or race which created economic inequalities and hardship.
Slavery in the British colonies was abolished in 1834, and the French and Austrians did the same in 1848. The 1840s saw a series of reforms in factory conditions, including the introduction of a 10-hour day, and legislation prohibiting child and women labour in underground mines.
It's a pity Thomas Carlyle viewed such things as dismal developments.
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