Abstract
The “dismal science” of classical economics inspired scant enthusiasm within the Hegelian school. Hegel himself may have held the more philosophical economists — Adam Smith notably — in some esteem, but he could hardly have accepted liberal economics as anything more than the operative principle of civil society1. Among Hegel’s disciples both classical liberal solutions to economic problems and the overall question of the material conditions of production were long subordinated to metaphysical, religious and strictly political issues. Indeed, it is only in the light of this neglect that one can understand Marx’s excitement upon discovering “political economy” through the intermediary of two very unorthodox Hegelians, Moses Hess and Friedrich Engels.
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Notes
Jean Hyppolite, Etudes sur Marx et Hegel, Paris, 1955,
and Shlomo Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modem State, Cambridge, 1972, among others, have argued that Hegel was far more imbued with liberal economics than he was willing to admit; the term “dismal science” appears to have been coined by Carlyle. See Gide et Rist, op. cit., p. 542.
Diary II, p. 17.
Diary I, p. 3, probably 3 January 1835.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Cieszkowski mentions Quesnay both in his Ionian Philosophy and in his Diary II, where he lists among his readings Parnell, De la réforme financière, Januszewski, Statut Koronny (a discussion of the treasury), and Jarith, Finanzwissenschaft, vol. I, to name but those which appear alongside some of the early notes for Du Crédit et de la Circulation.
For a biography of Frederyk Skarbek (1792–1866) see Waccaw Szubert, Studia o Frederyku Skarbku jako Ekonomiście, Prace z historji myśli spocecznej, III, Lodz, 1954.
For a discussion of the national economists, see Gide and Rist, op. cit., pp. 273–298.
Skarbek, Théorie des richesses sociales, vol. II, Paris, 1829, p. 291,
quoted in Szubert, op. cit, p. 106.
Skarbek, op. cit., II, p. 223: “The mode of production is never decided on the basis of the advantages which may come out of it for national wealth but rather according to the advantages which the capitalists can withdraw from the productive consumption of their capital. The interests of the capitalists are always contrary to those of the workers since they tend merely to raise the level of profits by means of lowering salaries… This means that the consumption of capital in the manufacturing industry only puts a lesser quantity of industry into activity than if it were determined uniquely by the well-being of the country”.
See B. Suchodolski, Rola Warszawskiego Towarzystwa Przyjacióc Nauk w rozwoju kultury umyscowej w Polsce, Warsaw, 1951.
Szubert, op. cit., p. 30.
For a brief summary of Sismondi’s contribution to economic doctrine see Gide and Rist, op. cit., chapter entitled ‘Sismondi and the origins of the critical school’, pp. 184–211,
as well as Lichtheim, op. cit., passim.
See also Henryk Grossman, Simonde de Sismondi et ses théories économiques, Warsaw, 1924.
Gide, op. cit., p. 207.
Sismondi, Nouveaux principes de l’économie politique, quoted in Gide, op. cit., p. 195: “Earnings of an entrepreneur sometimes represent nothing but the spoliation of the workmen... Such an industry is a social evil”.
Villeneuve-Bargemont’s Économie politique chrétienne appears on Cieszkowski’s reading lists for 1837–1838, Diary II, p. 1 and p. 5.
“I am quoting from the third edition of Du Crédit et de la Circulation, Paris, 1884, for the sake of convenience. Wherever the quotation differs from the 1st edition (Paris, 1839) or the 2nd edition (Paris, 1847) I have indicated the difference.”
See the article on ‘Interest’ by D. Patinkin, in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. VII, p. 470, for an exposition of classical Catholic doctrine. For an account of the transformation in this conception between 1822–36, see John T. Noonan Jr., The Scholastic Analysis of Usury, Cambridge (Mass.) 1957, pp. 377ff.
H. Svoboda, Grund und Boden als Währungunterlage, Nurnberg, 1928, goes to the extent of stating that Law’s notes were backed entirely by land. This is, of course, untrue since Law’s bubble was caused precisely by the fact that he sought to base his notes on values less tangible than land. For a more considered evaluation of Law,
see G. R. Bark, Boden als Geld, Berlin, 1930. See the short article ‘John Law’ by Earl J. Hamilton in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. IX, p. 78.
John Law, Money and Trade, Glasgow, 1750,
cited in Bark, op. cit., p. 25: “Good laws may bring the money to the full circulation it is capable of and force it to those employments that are most profitable to the country; but no laws can make it go further, nor can more people be set to work without more money to circulate so as to pay the wages of a greater number. They may be brought to work on credit and that is not practical unless the credit have a circulation so as to supply the workmen with necessities; if that be supposed then that credit is money and will have the same effects on home and foreign trade, an addition to the money adds to the value of the country”. In short, Law seems to be saying that a multiplication of credit is a multiplication of real economic capital.
See J. B. Vergeot, Le Crédit comme stimulant et régulateur de Vindustrie, Paris, 1918,
as well as Bark, op. cit., pp. 14ff, for a complete history of this idea.
Benjamin Franklin, ‘Political Economy’. Writings, Boston, 1882, p. 270,
cited in Bark, op. cit., p. 38: “Gold as precious metal and gold as means of circulation are two different things, both can rise or fall independently of each other. In this way, we must consider a paper money based on land as both land and money”.
For example, the experiments of the German Reichsbank in 1813–14 and the Danish experience of 1808–09. Closer to our period, one can think of the German Rentenmark of 1922–23.
As late as 1854, Wocowski could dismiss land-money as a serious economic concept by comparing it to the assignat. See his article ‘Crédit foncier’ in C. Coquelin et U. Guillaumin, eds., Dictionnaire de Véconomie politique, Paris, 1854, vol. I, p. 493. While rejecting anything which smacked of land-money Wocowski was an enthusiastic supporter of land-credit. When the Société de crédit foncier was founded in 1852 Wocowski was director of the Paris branch.
See G. de Nouvion, Charles Coquelin, Sa vie et ses travaux, Paris, 1908.
It is interesting to remark that the notions of crédit foncier were as enthusiastically received in liberal circles as they were among the socialists. For a short sketch of the history of land banks before their creation in France, see Wocowski, ‘L’organisation du crédit foncier’, Journal des Economistes, XXI, 1848.
See also G. Boccardo, Trattato teorico-practico di economia polińca. Turin, 1853, p. 188. Finally, Du Crédit et de la Circulation itself had frequent reference to the operation of land banks, especially in Poland, Prussia and Posen.
Nouvion, op. cit., p. 48.
Vergeot, op. cit., p. 214.
For other, non-socialist reform schemes see Coquelin et Guillaumin, op. cit.,
as well as H. D. Macleod, Dictionary of Political Economy, London 1863,
F. Vidal, L’organisation du Crédit, Paris, 1851. In 1848 the journal Le Crédit was founded. Its nature is testimony to the hopes put into credit reform and the very tame nature of the majority of credit schemes. The editors of Le Crédit called themselves “conservative” since they sought to conserve the republic in the face of reaction; nevertheless, their republicanism was of a very middle-of-the-road sort.
V. F. Wagner, Geschichte der Kredittheorien, Vienna, 1937, p. 57 quotes Berkeley in the Querist, 1751, “Whether all circulation be not alike a circulation of credit, whatsoever medium be employed and whether gold be any more than credit for so much power”.
See Wagner, op. cit., passim.
M. Aucuy, Systèmes socialistes d’échange, Paris, 1907.
If Saint-Simon saw the bank as the key institution of the future, his disciples were more skeptical about its liberating potential even though they still accorded it enormous respect. Thus, in Doctrine de Saint-Simon: exposition première année 1829 they defined the bank as “a social institution invested with all the functions so badly fulfilled today. It presides over material exploitation thus viewing things in a comprehensive perspective”.
Gide, op. cit., p. 252.
A Saint-Simonian complained in 1848: “The bourgeoisie consider credit something socialist and republican; the workers consider it too bourgeois, too piddling, too eau de rose”. Arlès to Enfantin, in Charléty, op. cit., p. 298.
K. Kolischer, Zarys Systemu Polityki Bankowej, Lowow, 1904, points to one, probably unacknowledged, application of Cieszkowski’s scheme: the Austrian interest-bearing state notes based on the salt revenues of Gmunden, Aussee and some other salt mines.
Under the Second Empire, Chevalier was to play a major role in the promotion of free trade, culminating in the Cobden-Chevalier treaty of 1854. For an account of Chevalier’s defection from the Saint-Simonians, see Charléty, op. cit.
Journal des Débats, 22nd August 1840.
E. B. ‘Des Banques administratives’, La Phalange, IV, 1846, p. 476. The editor of the journal was Victor Considerant.
See Duroselle, op. cit., pp. 90ff, on the rapprochement between Fourierists and Catholics in the mid-1840’s.
For Proudhon’s contacts with the German Parisian community, see P. Haubtmann, Marx et Proudhon; leurs rapports personnels, Paris, 1947. Proudhon himself wrote in November 1845 with either irony or awe: “I know more than twenty Germans, all doctors in philosophy”, letter to Michaud, Correspondance, vol. VI. p. 353,
cited in Lubac, op. cit., p. 139. In preparing his Contradictions économiques, Proudhon wrote: “It will be a criticism of political economy from the point of view of the social antinomies. At the end, I hope to teach the French public what the dialectic is… I have never read Hegel but I am certain that it is his logic which I shall use in my next work”,
letter to Bergmann, 19 January 1845, Correspondance de Proudhon, Paris, 1875, pp. 175–76. Later Marx was to claim: “During long, often overnight debates I infected him with Hegelianism, to his great misfortune, for not knowing German he could not study it properly”. ‘Über P. J. Proudhon’, Der Social Demokrat, nr. 16, 17 and 18. 1, 3 & 5 February 1865, in Marx-Engels Werke, vol. XVI, p. 27, Haubtmann proves, however, that Proudhon was never particularly impressed by Marx and hence it is likely that he picked up his Hegelian lore elsewhere.
Proudhon, Carnets, op. cit., vol. II, p. 247.
Proudhon P. J. Système des contradictions économiques ou philosophie de la misère, vol. II, in Oeuvres Complètes, Paris, 1923, pp. 110–111.
See Proudhon’s Du Crédit et de la Circulation, Paris, 1848.
Wagner, op. cit., discusses Proudhon’s notion there “to give credit under the monarchical regime of gold is to lend” and compares it to Proudhon’s statement in Contradictions économiques “to credit under the republican regime of the well-organized market is to exchange”.
Proudhon, Contradictions économiques, p. 113.
The Poverty of Philosophy, trans. H. Quelch, Chicago, 1910, chap. II, part 7; ‘Über P.J. Proudhon’, op. cit., repeats the same critique.
Haubtmann, op. cit., p. 16ft.
See, for example, C. Knies’ great work, Geld und Kredit, Berlin, 1876.
E. Baumstark, ‘Du Crédit et de la Circulation’, Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, June 1842, nr 119, p. 944.
K. Libelt, ‘Du Crédit et de la Circulation’, Pisma krytyczne, vol. V, Posen, 1851, pp. 17ff.
H. D. Macleod, Dictionary of Political Economy, vol. I, London 1863, pp. 431–432.
Reference is to G. Boccardo, Dizionario della economica politica e del commercio, vol. I, Turin, 1857, pp. 518–519, who wrote of Cieszkowski: “endowed with a notable tendency to abstraction, in his economic works he brought both the qualities and defects inherent to this characteristic. Without being a socialist he is not simply an economist in the orthodox sense of the word; fa parte a se, Dante would say”.
W. Śliwowska’s Sprawa Pietraszewców, Warsaw, 1964, recounts that a certain Jastrzebski gave lectures to the circle on political economy. He shared many of Cieszkowski’s views but argued that credit could not possibly solve the major problem of pauperism. During the trial of the Petrashevskij circle it was brought out that Cieszkowski’s book had been studied.
In a letter to his editor, Wurtz, dated 19 October 1839 (Biblioteka Polska, Paris, unpub.) Cieszkowski requested that his post be sent to Milan general delivery and expressed his worry that Du Crédit et de la Circulation was not selling well. He urged Wurtz to put ads into the Journal des Débats and wondered why Wurtz had not advertised in the Revue Brittanique, Revue des Deux Mondes, Revue administrative.
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Liebich, A. (1979). Du Crédit et de la Circulation. In: Between Ideology and Utopia. Sovietica, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9383-9_7
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