On Classical Economics.

• Author: Ahiakpor, James C.W.
• Position: Book review

On Classical Economics By Thomas Sowell New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 304. $35.00 cloth.

Thomas Sowell's On Classical Economics is about how little Sowell thinks of classical economics, not a critical restatement of classical economic principles to assist modern economic analysis or policymaking. Moreover, it is the dissenters from classical economic principles, in particular, Thomas Malthus, J. C. L. Sismondi and Karl Marx, whom Sowell credits with superior insights. Readers may be attracted by the facts that Sowell wrote two books on classical economics (1972 and 1974) and that he currently writes a weekly newspaper column on topical issues from a perspective many might think reflects classical economic principles. But the book seriously disappoints. Half of the eight chapters are merely a reprint of Sowell's Classical Economics Reconsidered (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), with no attention to the secondary literature since the late 1960s. He repeats claims that have been corrected since the early 1970s, especially on the classical theory of value and Say's Law of markets. The other four chapters also do not benefit from the secondary literature written since the early 1970s. Thus, accepting Sowell's conclusions about classical economics without verification would amount to a four-decade retreat in scholarship. Sowell's copious referencing of the primary literature in his "rapid-fire" style of summarizing classical arguments--often three or four or sometimes even eight (p. 30) citations within a sentence--may give the appearance of reliable scholarship, but several of the citations I checked appear inconsistent with Sowell's interpretations. Thus, to anyone familiar with the classical literature, the book may be quite frustrating. In the hands of someone attempting to understand classical economics, it may be quite misleading.

Chapter 1, "Social Philosophy of Classical Economics," discusses the views of such classical writers as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and John Stuart Mill on varying issues, including social classes, in particular landlords, businesspeople, and the poor; the proper role of government; war; and slavery. Sowell correctly identifies Smith as having discussed these issues most comprehensively, and because of the various writers' differing emphases, he concludes that there "was ... no rigid doctrinaire position on social policy in general or on the specific issues of the day" (p. 19), although laissez-faire was the basic frame of reference. A discussion of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism and its influence on those economists who argued for more government intervention, in particular J. S. Mill, would have been helpful.

Sowell's treatment of classical macroeconomics in chapter 2 is less in accord with the current interpretation of Say's Law of markets and the classical quantity theory of money. He dwells on the wrong arguments by Thomas Chalmers, Sismondi, Malthus, and James Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale about the possibility of too much production of all goods, including money, in a country--all up against the clarifications of Smith, J.-B. Say, James Mill, Ricardo, and J. S. Mill. Sowell finds more accuracy in the dissenters' views because he denies that proponents of the law used dynamic analysis and insists that the dissenters did so. He also alludes to Say's willingness to modify his original argument as being "subject to...