Critics of Capitalism Victorian Reactions to 'Political Economy' [Paperback]

By the start of the Victorian period the school of British economists which followed Adam Smith was in its ascendancy and 'Political Economy' became associated with moral and political forces leading to an increasingly industrial and political society. This collection of readings from the 'critics of capitalism' looks at the writings of Bray, Carlyle, Marx, Engels, Mill, Arnold, T. H. Green, William Morris and G. B. Shaw.By the start of the Victorian period the school of British economists which followed Adam Smith was in its ascendancy and 'Political Economy' became associated with moral and political forces leading to an increasingly industrial and political society. This collection of readings from the 'critics of capitalism' looks at the writings of Bray, Carlyle, Marx, Engels, Mill, Arnold, T. H. Green, William Morris and G. B. Shaw.By the start of the Victorian period the school of British economists acknowledging Adam Smith as its master was in the ascendancy. 'Political Economy', a catch-all title which ignored the diversity of viewpoints to be found amongst the discipline's leading proponents, became associated in the popular mind with moral and political forces held to be uniquely conducive to the progress of an increasingly industrialised and competitive society. 'Political Economy' served in turn as the focus for critics of equally diverse moral and political persuasions, who sought to challenge the materialism of contemporary society and offer their own assessments of the profound social changes of the time. In the introductory essay to the collection of readings from such 'critics of capitalism', the editors review the principles of the early economists, the way in which these principles were appropriated and applied by their Victorian successors and the contrasting modes which critics of popular economic ideas assumed. Subsequent extracts from the writings of the Owenite Socialist John Bray, Carlyle, Marx and Engels, J. S. Mill, Ruskin, Arnold, T. H. l£7