Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/703

 REVIEWS 683

mate acquaintance with the nature of the raw materials of that wealth which formed the chief subject-matter of commercial economy. He had spent most of his laborious life in patient detailed observation of nature and the works of man. Both from contemporary observation and from study of history, the actual processes by which large classes of goods were produced and con- sumed were familiar to him. How many of the teachers of political economy who have been so scornful of Mr. Raskin's claims possessed a tithe of this practical knowledge ?

In addition Mr. Raskin had as qaalifications a remarkable mastery of langaage, fearless honesty, and at least one of "the most analytic" minds in Earope.

His arraignment of current political economy may be formally divided into two parts. Firstly, he accuses the science of commercial wealth of wrongfully assuming the title and function of political economy. Secondly, he impugns the accuracy of many of the fundamental doctrines of this com- mercial science, and imputes to them an injurious influence upon the happi- ness and morality of society.

Mr. Hobson seems to make out his case that Mr. Raskin success- fully controverted the claim of the older economists that they could isolate the hypothetical self-seeking man and then make allowance for the disturbing influence of other motives; he is especially successful in demonstrating that the "disturbing elements" are not of the same nature as the other influences. This has certainly led more than any other criticism of the older political economy to a wider interpretation by the later students. What Mr. Ruskin has also demonstrated, and what the newer economist does not always appreciate, is that when the latter

points out how raising the character of civic life will react upon the efficiency of industry, his arguments are so many tacit admissions that the segregation of purely industrial phenomena is not, in fact, the convenient hypothesis for political economy which he averred it was.

Mr. Hobson sums up his chapter which gives Mr. Ruskin's criticisms of current political economy in these words :

Our claim is not that Mr. Ruskin has formed a system of sociology, or that he has advanced far toward such a system, but that he has pointed the way to such a science, and has laid down certain hypotheses of fact and terminology such as are consistent with advances made independently by other scientific men. By insisting upon the reduction of all economic terms, such as value, cost, utility, etc., to terms of " vitality," by insisting upon the organic integrity and unity of all human activities, and the organic nature of th« cooperation of the social units, and finally by furnishing a social ideal of