Economics

In an autobiographical fragment, Henry Sidgwick wrote that during the time he was most focused on the intersection of moral philosophy and theology, he was led to study political economy “as a matter of duty” (Sidgwick and Sidgwick 1906: 36). His move from moral philosophy to economics was not a random shift of interest but in his own mind carried a moral obligation. This may seem odd to twenty-first-century students of moral philosophy or economics, but for those influenced by the apostolic, Colderidgean tradition addressed in this book, the connection was clear and direct. Economics, like politics, is subordinate to moral philosophy. As Keynes put it, “economics more properly called political economy is a side of ethics . . . essentially a branch of ethics” (cited in O’Donnell 1989: 165). The most central and important matters in human life, what people should value and how they should conduct themselves in the world, were understood by Sidgwick and others to be matters of moral philosophy. The answer provided in this tradition to these questions, that people should value and cultivate certain intellectual capacities and the emotional experiences with which they are associated is, from one perspective inherently individual, but also involves collective action and thus politics. Among the most important areas in which political action is required to advance moral goodness involves economics because failure to achieve a certain level of material well-being and security can pose a serious obstacle to the cultivation of the relevant capacities and experiences. Insofar as economics is devoted to the systematic removal of barriers to the achievement of a satisfactory standard of living, it has a moral purpose. This is not to say that material deprivation may not be a source of spiritual elevation as, for example, in the case of St Francis or others who have chosen to live in poverty. Nor is it to say that poor people cannot experience the best states of mind associated with love and beauty. Nor does this mean that people could not experience good states of mind in the process of, and through the same actions as, those that involve meeting their material needs. The point is rather that activities involved with the satisfaction of material needs, such as the performance of tedious labor in direct production, can and frequently do constitute obstacles to the experience of good states of mind. Time endured in labor that is mentally and physically unrewarding in itself, such as much of the time involved with the satisfaction of material needs, is time that is unavailable for the experi-

ence of good states of mind or the cultivation of intellectual capacities that contribute to such experiences. Good experiences typically require leisure or at least are facilitated by leisure. Leisure might be understood as simply time off from tedious work, but this in itself is insufficient for the moral purpose at hand. Time in which one is recuperating from extensive or strenuous labor or numbing one’s body and mind between shifts is not typically suitable for experiencing the best states of mind or the cultivation of intellectual and emotional capacities. Proper rest and nutrition that allow for the highest level of intellectual and emotional functioning facilitate such experiences. Anxiety over the provision of future needs is also inconsistent with the kind of leisure that is best suited for the experience of good states of mind. The experiences of loving and being loved, or creating and appreciating beauty, are marred by the stress that economic uncertainty typically produces. Such anxiety does not necessarily prevent the experience of good states of mind, but it does create an obstacle to such experience. In the relevant sense, then, the leisure that facilitates the experience of the best states of mind involves not just time free from labor, but time during which one’s physical and mental abilities are sustained by the satisfaction of physical needs including proper rest and nutrition as well as a degree of security that removes the anxiety over future satisfaction of such needs. Economics – as it was understood by Keynes and others in the apostolic, Coleridgean tradition – was or should be about meeting material needs and alleviating the anxiety that results from economic insecurity. From the time of Coleridge himself, followers of the tradition involved themselves in economic questions. Coleridge criticized political economists of his day for their indifference to the human costs of the business cycle. He also participated actively in the fight for early laws restricting the employment of children (Holmes 1998: 474-7). Maurice was among the founders of Christian Socialism which directed its attention to the economic well-being of the working classes. Sidgwick’s move from moral philosophy to the study of economics followed a similar move by J.S. Mill and anticipated that of Alfred Marshall. In this Keynes proclaimed himself a follower of Marshall: “Marshall used always to insist that it was through ethics he arrived at political economy and I would claim myself in this, as in other respects, to be a pupil of his” (quoted in O’Donnell 1989: 165). In Keynes’s own cohort of Apostles Ralph Hawtrey made the same move for the same reasons. Despite the concern with economics of Coleridge, the Apostles, and those influenced by them, there was nothing that might be termed a Coleridgean or apostolic position on economics beyond the subordination of economics to moral considerations. The ends of economics come from outside of economics while, like politics, economics itself is concerned solely with means. Those in the tradition were broadly agreed on the ends, but there were disagreements about the means to those ends. Coleridge and Maurice wished to see drastic and immediate changes to the existing economic system that would bring moral questions to the forefront: “Competition is put forth as the law of the universe. That is a lie. The time is come for us to declare that it is a lie by word and deed” (Maurice 1884,

1: 32). By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the view of John Stuart Mill, influenced by Comte, seems to have become predominant among the Apostles, according to which the changes in moral life such as those that Coleridge and Maurice desired would come as a result of economic progress. There is a vast literature on Keynes’s economics writings and many interpretations of their significance. In this chapter I do not attempt a comprehensive analysis or interpretation of Keynes’s economics. Instead I offer a Coleridgean reading of what Keynes called “the comparatively simple fundamental ideas which underlie my theory” (Keynes 1971-89, 13: 111). I am concerned to show only that Keynes’s key contributions to economics as he understood them developed out of his Coleridgean construal of the problem at hand and that this framework provides a useful way of understanding the basic ideas behind his theory. I have said that there was no distinctively Coleridgean economics. Keynes’s approach nevertheless was Coleridgean in at least two important respects. First, he was never primarily focused on models, technical devices, or economic principles in themselves; he was always concerned, first and foremost, with the capacity of the economy to meet the needs of the relevant population. In the Economic Consequences of the Peace his focus was the capacity of the German economy to meet the needs of the German population relative to the commitments imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty. From the 1920s Keynes focused on employment, the chief economic means through which economic security might be achieved. Any importance he may have attached to models, technique, or principles followed from this primary area of interest. This is clear from his early Tract on Monetary Reform, his Treatise on Money, the General Theory, as well as his popular writings. Second, in his most influential economic work, the General Theory, Keynes’s theoretical approach to existing theory was characteristically Coleridgean. He began with the prevalent theory of economics, what he called “classical” economics, and he did not deny that it expressed truth, but instead argued that it contained only a partial truth rather than the whole truth for which it had been mistaken. In the first chapter of the General Theory he suggested that the conventional economics of his time was valid only in a particular context, in a particular case, and not in general:

I have called this book the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, placing the emphasis on the prefix general. The object of such a title is to contrast the character of my arguments and conclusions with those of the classical theory of the subject. . . . I shall argue that the postulates of the classical theory are applicable to a special case only and not to the general case.