John Elliott Cairnes
John Elliott Cairnes | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 8 July 1875 | (aged 51)
Nationality | Irish |
Spouse | Elizabeth Charlotte Alexander (maiden) |
Academic career | |
Institutions |
|
Field | Political economy |
School or tradition | Classical economics |
Alma mater | Trinity College Dublin |
John Elliott Cairnes (26 December 1823 – 8 July 1875) was an
Biography
John Cairnes was born at Castlebellingham, County Louth. He was the son of William Elliott Cairnes (1787–1863) of Stameen, near Drogheda, and Marianne Woolsey, whose mother was the sister of Sir William Bellingham, 1st Baronet of Castlebellingham. John's father decided upon a business career, against the wishes of his mother (Catherine Moore of Moore Hall, Killinchy), and became a partner in the Woolsey Brewery at Castlebellingham. In 1825, William Cairnes started on his own account in Drogheda, making the Drogheda Brewery an unqualified success. He was remembered for his great business capacity and for the deep interest he took in charity.[citation needed]
After leaving school, John Cairnes spent some years in the
While residing in
In 1861, Cairnes was appointed to the professorship of
During the remainder of his residence at Galway, Professor Cairnes published nothing beyond some fragments and pamphlets, mainly upon
Family
Cairnes, on 27 November 1860, married Elizabeth ("Eliza") Charlotte Alexander (maiden; 1838–1896) in
Work
The last years of Cairnes' life were spent in the collection and publication of some scattered papers, contributing to various reviews and magazines, and in the preparation of his most extensive and important work. The Political Essays, published in 1873, comprise all his papers relating to Ireland and its university system, together with some other articles of a somewhat similar nature. The Essays in Political Economy, Theoretical and Applied, which appeared in the same year, contain the essays towards a solution of the gold question, brought up to date and tested by comparison with statistics of prices. Among the other articles in the volume, the more important are the criticisms on
Taken as a whole, the works of Cairnes formed the most important contribution to economic science made by the English school since the publication of J. S. Mill's Principles. It is not possible to indicate more than generally the special advances in economic doctrine effected by him, but the following points may be noted as establishing for him a claim to a place beside Ricardo and Mill.[4]
Cairnes' exposition of the province and method of political economy: He never suffers it to be forgotten that political economy is a science and, consequently, that its results are entirely neutral with respect to social facts or systems. It has simply to trace the necessary connections among the phenomena of wealth and dictates no rules for practice. Further, he is distinctly opposed both to those who would treat political economy as an integral part of social philosophy, and to those who have attempted to express economic facts in quantitative formulae and to make economy a branch of applied mathematics. According to him political economy is a mixed science, its field being partly mental, partly physical. It may be called a positive science, because its premises are facts, but it is hypothetical in so far as the laws it lays down are only approximately true, i.e. are only valid in the absence of counteracting agencies.[4]
From this view of the nature of the science, it follows at once that the method to be pursued must be that called by Mill the physical or concrete deductive, which starts from certain known causes, investigates their consequences and verifies or tests the result by comparison with facts of experience. It may, perhaps, be thought that Cairnes gives too little attention to the effects of the organism of society on economic facts, and that he is disposed to overlook what Walter Bagehot called the postulates of political economy.[4]
Cairnes' analysis of cost of production in its relation to value: According to Mill, the universal elements in cost of production are the wages of labour and the profits of capital. To this theory, Cairnes objects that wages, being remuneration, can in no sense be considered as cost, and could only have come to be regarded as cost in consequence of the whole problem being treated from the point of view of the capitalist, to whom, no doubt, the wages paid represent cost. The real elements of cost of production he looks upon as labour, abstinence and risk, the second of these falling mainly, though not necessarily, upon the capitalist. In this analysis, he, to a considerable extent, follows and improves upon Nassau William Senior, who had previously defined cost of production as the sum of the labour and abstinence necessary to production.[4]
Cairnes' exposition of the natural or social limit to free competition, and of its bearing on the
Cairnes' defence of the
Selected extant publications
Articles, lectures, papers
- Dublin Statistical Society, papers:
- "On the Best Means of Raising the Supplies for a War Expenditure," read to the Society 20 March 1854
- An Examination Into the Principles of Currency Involved in the Bank Charter Act of 1844, read to the Society 19 June 1854
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- Journal of the Dublin Statistical Society
- "The Effect of War on Prices," Vol. 1, No. 4, April 1856, pps. 223–238
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- Fraser's Magazine
- "Essay Towards an Experimental Solution to the Gold Question," Vol. 60, September 1859, pps. 267–278
- "Essay Towards a Solution to the Gold Question" (2nd paper), Vol. 61, January 1860, pps. 38–53
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- Edinburgh Review
- "Review of Chevalier's 1859 book, (← article link/book link →) On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold," (re: Michel Chevalier) (book review), Vol. 112, No. 227, July 1860, pps. 1–33
- "Ireland" (Cairne's authorship was anonymous), Vol. 119, January to April 1864, pps. 279–304
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- "The Revolution in America: A Lecture" (1862; 7th ed., 1863)
- "Colonization and Colonial Government: A Lecture," presented in the Metropolitan Hall, 26 October 1864
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- "Estrangement Between the United States and Great Britain," 1862, London Anti-Slavery Advocate (repr.Living Age, Third Series, Vol. 19, 1962, pps. 328–330)
- The Southern Confederacy and the African Slave Trade, A correspondence between Prof. Cairnes and George McHenry (1824–1880) (1863):
- McHenry was a pro-Confederate export merchant from Philadelphia who authored in 1863, The Cotton Trade[5]
- "Notes on the State of Ireland" (an 1864 essay on the agrarian conditions of Ireland, prepared for John Stuart Mill's 1865 6th ed. of Principals)
- The Economist
- "Irish Education" (letter to the editor), Vol. 23, No. 1147, 19 August 1965, pps. 1000–1002
- "Ireland in Transition" (series on Cottierism)
- "Ireland in Transition," Vol. 23, No. 1150, 9 September 1865, pps. 1087–1088
- "Free Trade," Vol. 23, No. 1151, 16 September 1865, pps. 1116–1117
- "Ireland in Transition," Vol. 23, No. 1150, 30 September 1865, pps. 1173–1175
- "The Decline of Cottierism," Vol. 23, No. 1152, 7 October 1865, pps. 1204–1205
- "The Irish Cottier," Vol. 23, No. 1152, 21 October 1865, pps. 1146–1147
- "Peasant Proprietorship," Vol. 23, No. 1158, 4 November 1865, pps. 1333–1334
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- "The 'Law' of Demand and Supply" (in two parts) (re: supply and demand)
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- Fortnightly Review, volumes numbered by New Series
- "Bastiat" (re: Frédéric Bastiat), Vol. 12, No. 46, May 1870, pps. 411–428
- "Political Economy and Land," Vol. 12, 1 January – 1 June 1870, p. 41–63
- "M. Comte and Political Economy" (re: Auguste Comte; 1798–1855), Vol. 41, 1 May 1870, p. 579
- "A Note" (on Frederic Harrison), Vol. 44, 1 August 1870, pps. 246–247
- "Political Economy and Laissez-Faire" (re: laissez-faire), Vol. 10, 1 January – 1 June 1871, pps. 80–97
- "Our Defences: A National or Standing Army?" Vol. 9, 1 January – 1 June 1871, pps. 167–198
- "New Theories of Political Economy," Vol. 11, 1 January – 1 June 1872, pps. 71–76
- "Froude's Irish History" (re: James Anthony Froude), Vol. 92, 1 August 1874, p. 171
- Herbert Spencer on Social Evolution
- "Mr. Spencer on Social Evolution," Vol. 17, 1 January 1875, pps. 63–82
- "Mr. Spencer on the Study of Sociology," Vol. 17, 1 January – 1 June 1875, pps. 200–213
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- John Stuart Mill, His Life and Works: Twelve Sketches, James R. Osgood and Company (1873)
- "His Work in Political Economy," by Cairnes, pps. 65–73
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- Macmillan's Magazine
- "England's Neutrality in the American Contest – Regarded from the Federal Point of View," Vol. 9, No. 51, January 1864, pps. 260–272Reprint with additions by the Emancipation Society, 1864
- "The Negro Suffrage," Vol. 12, No. 68, August 1865, pps. 334–343
- "Woman Suffrage – A Reply" (to Mr. Goldwin Smith), Vol. 30, No. 179, September 1874, pps. 377–388Excerpts re-printed in theNew York Times, Vol. 14, No. 7182, 23 September 1874, p. 3
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- "Woman Suffrage as Affecting the Family,"Popular Science Monthly, November 1874, pps. 87–90
Compilations, reprints
- The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy – "Being a course of lectures delivered in theWhatley Professor of Political Economy, Trinity College Dublin(1857; 2nd ed., 1875)
- "Of the Character, Objects, and Limits of Political Economy"
- "Of the Mental and Physical Premises of Political Economy, and of the Logical Character of the Doctrines thence deduced"
- "Of the Logical Method of Political Economy"
- "Of the Solution of an Economic Problem, and of the degree of perfection of which it is suspectible"
- "Of the Malthusian Doctrine of Population" (re: Thomas Robert Malthus)
- "Of the Theory of Rent"
- "Essays Towards a Solution of the Gold Question"
- "Introductory"
- "The Australian Episode" (re: Australian gold rushes)
"Postscript"
- "The Course of Depreciation"
- "International Results"
- "Summary of the Movement – M. Chevalier's Views"
"Postscript"
- "Co-Operation in the Slate Quarries of North Wales" (re: Slate industry in Wales)
- "Political Economy and Land"
"Note"
- "Political Economy and Laissez-Faire"
- "M. Comte and Political Economy"
"Note"
- "Bastait" (re: Frédéric Bastiat)
- "Colonization and Colonial Government"
- "International Law"
- "Fragments on Ireland"
- "The Agricultural Revolution – Protection and Free Trade"
- "The Emigration"
- "The Irish Cottier"
- "The Landlordism"
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- "Our Defences: A National or a Standing Army?"
- "Thoughts on University Reform d-propos of the Irish Educational Crisis of 1865–6""Notes"
- "The Present Position of the Irish University Question; 1873" (re: Irish University Bill)
See also
Notes
- ^ Blaug, Mark, ed. (1986). "CAIRNES, JOHN ELLIOT". Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 (2nd ed.). Wheatsheaf Books Limited. p. 139 – via Internet Archive.
- Thomas Ulick Sadleirp. 120: Dublin, Alex Thom and Co, 1935
- ^ a b c Chisholm 1911, p. 950.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Chisholm 1911, p. 951.
- ^ Times, The (Philadelphia), 9 November, 1880.
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cairnes, John Elliott". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 950–951. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- "Death of George M'Henry – His Busy Life as a Merchant, Correspondent and Railroad Man". Newspapers.com.
External links
- NUI Galway: John Elliott Cairnes NUI Galway is the successor to Queen's College Galway
- Works by John Elliot Cairnes at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about John Elliott Cairnes at Internet Archive
- Works by John Elliott Cairnes at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by or about John Elliott Cairnes at Internet Archive