The 1883-84 academic year at Harvard marked a notable expansion in economics course offerings. From this point on I’ll almost only post materials for a single course at a time, though sometimes I’ll transcribe a few years’ worth of course materials. For the second course in political economy taught at Harvard in 1883-84 it appears that the first semester was devoted to the history of economic theory with the primary text being Cairnes’ Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (1878). Unfortunately I haven’t yet found the mid-year final examination. However I have found a copy of the end-of-year final exam that covered Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1881) and most likely the abridged version of H.C. Carey’s Principles of Social Science by Kate McKean (1865).
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Course Enrollment:
Political Economy 2. Prof. Dunbar. History of Economic Theory and an Examination of Recent Doctrines. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles. — George’s Progress and Poverty. — Carey’s Social Science. 3 hours per week in 1st half-year, 2 in 2d
Total 23: 2 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Other.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1883-1884, p. 71
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Year-end Examination. June 1884]
[Of 1, 2, and 3 one may be omitted.]
- “But the fundamental truth, that in all economic reasoning must be firmly grasped and never let go, is that society in its most highly developed form is but an elaboration of society in its modest beginnings, and that principles obvious in the simpler relations of men are merely disguised and not abrogated or reversed by the more intricate relations that result from the division of labor and the use of complex tools and methods.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 23]
What limits, if any, should you set to the validity of arguments thus drawn from the case of primaeval society? - How far does the proposition that “the power of any population to produce the necessaries of life is not to be measured by the necessaries of life actually produced, but by the expenditure of power in all modes,” or that “the power of producing wealth in any form is the power of producing subsistence,” serve as an answer to the Malthusian theory? [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 127]
- Compare (1) George’s views as to the increase of general productive power when population is advancing, with (2) Carey’s theory that in the progress of society it becomes possible to devote a larger proportion of a constantly increasing force to the development of natural resources, and with (3) the ordinary reasoning as to increasing difficulty of subsistence.
- “If it be true that wages depend upon the ratio between the amount of labor seeking employment and capital devoted to its employment, then high wages must be accompanied by low interest, and reversely. This is not the fact, but the contrary” [as g. in new countries]. [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 17]
- “Both Smith and Ricardo use the term ‘natural wages’ to express the minimum upon which laborers can live; whereas, unless injustice is natural, all that the laborer produces should rather be held as his natural wages.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 146]
Point out the ambiguity. - “Without any increase in population, the progress of invention constantly tends to give a larger and larger proportion of the produce to the owners of land, and a smaller and smaller one to labor and capital. And, as we can assign no limits to the progress of invention, neither can we assign any limit to the increase of rent, short of the whole produce.” [Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 5th edition, 1883, p. 227]
Consider the reasoning by which these propositions are sustained. - What answer is there to Mr. George’s theory that rent, resting upon a monopoly, is able to, and does, intercept any gains which might otherwise accrue to labor?
- Suppose all rents to be confiscated by means of taxation, what would be the effect upon the condition of the laboring class?
- Carey says:—
“It may be asked, why should a very rare copy of an ancient work sell for many times its original price? Value is limited to the cost of reproduction; and when an object cannot be reproduced, its value has no limit but the fancy of those who desire to possess it.” [Kate McKean’s Manual of Social Science, being a Condensation of Principles of Social Science by H.C. Carey (1879), p. 88]
Can the class of cases, thus admitted to exist, of objects which “cannot be reproduced,” be made to include land? - Increasing ease of reproduction of money and of improved land is given as the reason for a decline of both interest and rent as society advances. Why then should not land fall in value as well as money?
- Upon Mr. Carey’s reasoning, excluding the law of diminishing returns, how is the rise in value of agricultural produce as society advances to be reconciled with the cheapening effects of agricultural improvement?
- What logical necessity has compelled Mr. Carey to assume the existence of a law of diminishing fecundity in the human race? [Kate McKean’s Manual of Social Science, being a Condensation of Principles of Social Science by H.C. Carey (1879), p. 436] Compare this with the reasoning which leads to the Malthusian conclusion as to the ultimate necessity for checks upon increase, either positive or preventive.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound volume, Examination Papers 1883-86: Papers set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy,… in Harvard College (June, 1884), pp. 8-9.