A Note on Readings for the Student of Political Economy

I HAVE mentioned in footnotes the contributions which I believe will be most fruitful for the student who wishes to delve more deeply into the problems raised here. I have not referred, however, to James Mill’s trenchant Essay on Government which, before the big extension of the franchise in Britain, drew attention to the dangers lurking in representative government (which James Mill advocated).

The following brief comments on other works (mostly mentioned in the text) may prove useful.

Lord Morley’s On Compromise (quoted on p. 14) deals beautifully with the philosophical and political issues.

Clarence Philbrook’s profound article (first quoted on p. 2) was, I think, the earliest contribution of recent decades to treat satisfactorily the economists’ role in opinion-making.

My own Economists and the Public (first quoted on pp. 16–17), and particularly Chapter X entitled ‘The Economists’ Fight for a Hearing’, reflects my early thinking on the subject.

Two important works by T W Hutchison also bear directly on the questions I have discussed: Economics and Economic Policy in Britain, 1946–1966 (first quoted on p. 3), and Markets and the Franchise (first quoted on p. 2).

Schumpeter’s great work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (first quoted on p. 7), seems, unfortunately, to be seldom read in these days. I advise any student of the relations of economics and policy to invest time in studying it.

On the concept of ‘democracy’, R Bassett’s The Essentials of Parliamentary Democracy (referred to in a footnote, p. 26) may prove a useful corrective to Schumpeter’s rather contemptuous view of representative governmental institutions in practice.

In respect of what I have called ‘political economy’, I recommend the student to consider the Calculus of Consent by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (first referred to on p. 3, footnote); G Tullock, Towards a Mathematic of Politics (quoted on p. 14) and Entrepreneurial Politics. Other important contributors in this field are Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, and Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy.

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