Samuel Hollander

John Stuart Mill's Method In Principle and Practice: A Review of the Evidence

Our concern is John Stuart Mills methodological pronouncements, his actual practice, and the relationship between them. We argue that verification played a key role in Mills method, both in principle and in practice. Our starting point is the celebrated declaration regarding verification in the essay On the Definition of Political Economy; and on the Method of Investigation Proper to It (1836/ 1967; hereafter Essay): “By the method A priori we mean … reasoning from an assumed hypothesis; which … is the essence of all science which admits of general reasoning at all. To verify the hypothesis itself A posteriori, that is, to examine whether the facts of any actual case are in accordance with it, is no part of the business of science at all, but of the application of science†(Mill 1836/1967, p. 325). The apparent position that the basic economic theory is impervious to predictive failure emerges also in a sharp criticism of the A posteriori method:

On Composition of Demand and Income Distribution In Classical Economics

In several reviews of my Classical Economics (1987; henceforth CE) a criticism recurs relating to my proposition that distribution in Ricardian economics is dependent upon the pattern of final demand. Anthony Brewer, who is convinced by the demonstration in the book of ‘a fundamentally important core of general equilibrium economics accounting for resource allocation in terms of the rationing function of relative prices,’ has stated the objection fairly and his formulation invites and deserves a response:[Hollander] does overstate his case at times. For example, he claims that, in Ricardos theory, changes in the pattern of demand should react on the demand for labour, and thus on wages, while admitting that ‘Ricardo himself never formally made’ this extension [CE, p. 104]. He later uses exactly this interaction of demand and wages to support his interpretation of Ricardo against Dobb [CE, p. 360]. Surely, the fact that Ricardo did not ‘formally make’ this point (i.e., did not make it at all) is an argument against Hollanders reading, not for it (1988, p. 555).

On Malthus's population principle and social reform.

The author questions the interpretation of Malthusian theory that emphasizes that population growth will always outstrip available resources. He stresses instead Malthuss alternative hypothesis that the prudential restraint of growth in the labor force can result in constant or even rising wage rates. The article also describes the policy objectives of Malthus to achieve both an increasing population and high wages. Consideration is given to the confusions arising from differences among the various editions of Malthuss work. The emergence of an expanded role for policy intervention in later editions is noted.

On the Endogeneity of the Margin and Related Issues in Ricardian Economics

As Kenneth Arrow has pointed out in a recent paper, “David Ricardo was a peaceful man” (Arrow 1991, p. 70). Indeed he was—during his lifetime. I am not so sure he is resting peacefully given the further assertion that his system was “a bold attempt to determine values independent of demand considerations” (ibid., p. 75). Arrow adds, byway of qualification, that he does “not think, as some neo-Ricardians seem to, that there was in any sense an intended repudiation of the demand schedule”; rather Ricardo did not conceive of such a schedule even though “some of [his] analysis can only be made sensible on the basis of such a concept.”

Making the Most of Anomaly in the History of Economic Thought: Smith, Marx-Engels, and Keynes

A discrepancy between what we expect an author to say and what he actually does say should be an inducement to examine and, if necessary, adjust or even abandon the initial presumption. Unfortunately, all too often apparent anomalies are simply discarded as error or as unrepresentative, leaving the initial interpretation unaffected. The fruitfulness of according serious attention to apparent anomaly is illustrated by reference to Smith’s case for government intervention in the credit market (his support of the Usury Laws), and the Marx-Engels appeal to the orthodox pricing mechanism in evaluating contemporary reformist schemes. My third case concerns Keynes’s misrepresentation of Ricardian macro-economic policy, more specifically, his unwillingness to make use of his demonstrable awareness of Ricardo’s actual position to support his argument against the Return to Gold at par in 1925. Here again we face an anomalous situation, though of a different sort to the first two. The object of the exercise is the same, namely to achieve a better comprehension of the author in question by resolving the anomaly, but in this instance – unlike the first two – I have not yet arrived at a resolution.

On the Marxian entrepreneur: Karl Marx's abandonment of the doctrine of exploitation under industrial capitalism

My concern is Marxs perspective on the functioning capitalists role with regard to technological and technical change. I first trace out Marxs minimization of the capitalists responsibilities with regard to basic and applied science and the uncertainties attached thereto. As for innovation proper the ‘determinism’ usually attributed to Marx is less justified. It emerges that the doctrine of exploitation, as it applied to the industrial or ‘functioning’ capitalist, was under threat even before publication in 1867 of volume I of Capital. The threat emanated from Marxs own recognition, whilst composing that volume, of decision-making by the owner-entrepreneur with regard to innovation in the face of uncertainty. The exploitation doctrine, I shall show, was in effect restricted by Marx to joint-stock organization.

Jean-Baptiste Say and the Classical Canon in Economics : Land-Based Growth Theory

This paper demonstrates Say’s adoption of a land-scarcity based growth model of the canonical variety, though neither consistently nor in its entirety. It also emerges that Say was at one with Ricardo on the ‘primacy’ of supply conditions in value determination. The evidence is drawn mainly from the Traite d’economie politique and the Cours complet raising the question why the canonical properties contained in readily available sources seem to have been generally overlooked.

“It's an Ill Wind…”: A Memoir

I can conceive of few academics presumptuous or foolhardy enough to write an “intellectual autobiography” unless invited to do so. It is no easy assignment. One seeks to protect a core of privacy; there is a residual subjectivity regarding events and persons that cannot be eliminated; one is obliged to tone things down for practical reasons. Even if one can hope to tell the “truth” it will not be the whole truth—certainly not in twenty-two pages. It must also be said that any linkages that might be suggested between character or experience and professional contribution (and an intellectual autobiography of course seeks out such linkages) can never progress beyond the stages of hypothesis; neither necessary nor sufficient causation is at issue. Yet I myself have learned something from this exercise; perhaps my readers will too.

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834)

John Maynard Keynes focused famously on a perceived sharp methodological divide between Malthus ‘the inductive and intuitive investigator’ and Ricardo ‘the abstract and a priori theorist.’ This sharp contrast is unjustified. I establish Malthus’s bona fides as a leading theorist by reference to his land-based growth model; his perception of an aggregate-demand problem, independent of the scarce land constraint; and his Physiocratic perspective (ultimately abandoned) on the source of surplus in agriculture. Malthus is also shown to proceed with supreme caution when addressing policy issues where factual circumstance relating to time and place are of the essence. But here too a sharp contrast with Ricardo is unjustified.

Thomas Robert Malthus and the Utilitarians

Abstract In his Utilitarianism and Malthus’s Virtue Ethics (2014) Sergio Cremaschi argues for a distinctive, theologically based, utilitarianism adopted by Thomas Robert Malthus contrasting with the utilitarianism of the Philosophical Radicals. This paper restates and reinforces the case for a coalescence of the Malthusian and secular utilitarian perspectives primarily on the following grounds. In an effort to reconcile theology and welfare, Malthus effectively undermined the former by radically reinterpreting the scriptures to justify a reduced birth rate. His transition in the 1820s to the Ricardian vision of industrial development turned on perceived changes in the empirical and legislative environment with no theological input whatsoever. Moreover, while Malthus at times perceived virtue divorced from consequences for happiness, so too did Ricardo and J.S. Mill, even when at odds with the wealth and happiness components of the utilitarian maximand.