CHAPTER III.

ON THE RELATION OF POLITICAL ECONOMY TO

OTHER SCIENCES.

IN speaking of the limits of political economy we have already shown how it differs from other sciences which are yet akin to it in that they treat either wholly or in part of the same subject-matter. Those differences cannot do away with the analogies-nor hence with more or less close relations-between these sciences and political economy, relations and analogies which we propose in the present chapter briefly to discuss. At the same time we shall indicate the more recent and important works which deal, either with these relations at large, or with one or other of the said sciences in special connection with political economy.

Having first premised that these relations may be called either passive or active according as political economy receives or gives information, we will speak more particularly of the relations between political economy and :

1. Private Economy.
2. Morals.

4. Statistics.

5. Law.

3. History.

6. Politics.

§ 1. Private Economy,

While political economy considers both wealth and the industries from which it arises in their relations to society and not in connection either with the conditions of the family or with technical processes, it yet not seldom receives valuable assistance from technology, and from private-more especially from industrial—economy. It is not able either to recognise the natural laws of social wealth nor to deduce from them wise administrative rules without first paying attention to the technical and economic conditions of separate industries,

This assistance is indispensable to political economy when it treats of the division and combination of labour, of machines, of money, of the means of transport and communication, of the formation, the scale, and the organisation of industrial enterprises, &c.

On the other hand political economy, explaining in the mass the general laws of the economic world which cannot with impunity be defied by individuals, throws the most useful light on private economy. The latter, thus finding its complement, corrects by enlarging the purely individual point of view which it per se naturally takes, especially in the department of industrial economy. For this reason some recent writers treat diffusely of such economic doctrines as are more closely connected with the principles of industrial economy and in particular with the doctrine of manufacture. The following works deserve special mention :

C. G. Courcelle-Seneuil, Manuel des Affaires, third edition, Paris, 1872.

A. Emminghaus, Allgemeine Gewerkslehre. Berlin, 1868.

M. Haushofer, Der Industriebetrieb, Stuttgart, 1874 (a more copious and complete work than the preceding). P. Coq, Cours d'économie industrielle. Paris, 1876. Ch. Laboulaye, Économie des machines et des manufactures. Paris, 1880. (Reproduction of the well-known work of Babbage.)

§ 2. Morals.

Although political economy is a science altogether distinct from morals, yet, especially in its applications, it is closely related to it.

In its applied part political economy is inferior in rank to morals, the supreme precepts of which ought never to be disregarded in the pursuit of mere economic advantage. In the progress of civilisation, wealth is simply a means to the attainment of the higher aim of moral improvement. Therefore in the event of partial conflicts between ethical and economic interests, the latter ought always to give way to the demands of the former. In dealing for example with the employment of women and children in factories, important considerations of a moral kind would justify the energetic action of social powers when economic reasons either do not demand or even distinctly discourage such interference.

We have used the expression partial to qualify these conflicts, knowing well that general or permanent conflicts between morals and economy cannot be imagined. They are rendered impossible by that consoling fact known to philosophers, the ultimate harmony of utility with justice and right. On these points we must beware of

two opposite errors, that of necessary and fatal contradiction or antinomy (Proudhon), and the other error of expecting necessary harmony in the minute particulars of economic life (Carey, Bastiat, Ferrara).

But this inferiority of political economy relates only to its applied part, because with respect to the pure science, which seeks for the primary causes of economic and moral phenomena alike, there can be no question of preeminence. Political economy may even give the most useful support to morals, and one who is a Christian moralist and at the same time an orthodox economist has said with good reason that political economy is the most powerful ally of morality (Droz).

It does in fact provide a powerful practical argument to influence minds which are not open to conviction from philosophic principles and which have no strong inclination to obey the sentiment of duty. It points out the material advantages to be derived from the exercise of certain virtues, such as industry, foresight, thrift. Further, it makes clear the economic disadvantages of certain vices, such as idleness, improvidence, dissipation, and those still greater ones arising from social institutions repugnant to moral laws (slavery, serfdom, war, &c.).

Political economy rightly studied may thus help to correct the erroneous assertions of some moralists who, judging certain actions morally blamable, bring in false economic considerations to determine the degree of their culpability. One often reads or hears for example that avarice is a worse vice than prodigality, which may, it is said, be at least partly excused by its beneficial economic effects. As a matter of fact, from the purely economic aspect of the two vices, it is more

correct to say that the lying idle of a certain portion of wealth is a less evil than its absolute destruction. (On this point see Clément, Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique-Introduction, pp. xxiii., xxiv. Paris, 1853.)

In the last twenty years this very delicate question of the relations between morals and political economy has been much discussed, especially in elaborate monographs called forth in the competition for a prize offered by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (1857).

We will enumerate the chief of these, with the warning that in some of them the just balance is not held, while they recommend as a step in scientific progress the absorption into political economy of a great part of ethics, which would in reality be a most undesirable retrogression.

These are the titles of some of them :

H. Baudrillart, Des Rapports de la Morale et de l'Économie Politique. Paris, 1860.

A. Rondelet, Du Spiritualisme en Économie Politique. Paris, 1859.

H. Dameth, Le Juste et l'Utile. Paris, 1859.

M. Minghetti, Dell'economia pubblica e delle sue attinenze colla morale e col diritto. Florence, 1859. 2nd ed., 1868. This is a thoughtful work, which adds to its many intrinsic merits that too rare in Italy-of an elegant and correct style.

§ 3. History.

Political economy studies the general laws by which economic facts are governed, while history chronologically traces the successive development of these facts.