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Published by EH.NET (December 2001) 
 
David M. Levy, _How the Dismal Science Got Its Name: Classical Economics 
and the Ur-Text of Racial Politics_. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan 
Press, 2001. xv + 320 pp. $52.50 (cloth), ISBN: 0-472-11219-8. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Stanley L. Engerman, Departments of Economics and 
History, University of Rochester. <[log in to unmask]> 
 
 
David M. Levy, Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University 
and Research Associate of the Center for the Study of Public Choice, has 
written numerous articles and books on the history of economic thought, 
works that are most imaginative in their arguments. _How the Dismal Science 
Got Its Name_ is a collection of twelve related essays, six previously 
published, concerned primarily with several leading mid-nineteenth century 
English critics of capitalism, contrasting their ideology with that of some 
of the major classical economists. 
 
The major villain for Levy is Thomas Carlyle, who originated the title of 
"Dismal Science" for economics, as well as providing other criticisms of 
the economic beliefs of that time. Other literary figures under attack are 
John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, and Charles Kingsley. The basic charge is 
that these men, critics of capitalism, were racists, anti-Semites, and 
elitists. Levy's thought was first moved in this direction by comments of 
Earl Hamilton at the University of Chicago. These points are not themselves 
novel -- as readers of Thomas Carlyle's 1849 essay, "Occasional Discourse 
on the Negro Question," long have known. (The word Nigger had been 
substituted for Negro for an 1853 reprinting.) That essay, and the rebuttal 
it drew from John Stuart Mill in 1850, have become staples of the debates 
on British West Indian emancipation and racial differences in the 
nineteenth century. What Levy has done is to make these arguments not an 
isolated aberration as some Carlyle defenders argue, but rather a central 
part of his views as they relate to capitalist society. Thus. according to 
Levy, there is a clear link between proslavery racism and anticapitalist 
thought that has been overlooked by many subsequent scholars. They have 
been led to classify the classical economists as "enemies of humanity" 
rather than being humanistic and egalitarian as Levy, and several other 
authors, contend. But, of course, to show that Smith and the earlier 
classical economists were more humane than some believe currently is not 
that novel an argument, nor does it mean that today's classical economists 
are necessarily to be considered as "friends of humanity." 
 
It is clear that the critiques of capitalism have come from at least two 
different ideological directions. There is the ega1itarian critique, 
concerned with the inequalities of income and wealth, which are seen as the 
outcome of market capitalism. Then there is the elitist, more conservative, 
attack on capitalism for destroying culture and creating a degenerate 
population of individuals not able to make the right (by elite standards) 
choices in the market. To those who believe in the advantages of hierarchy, 
consumer sovereignty and market egalitarianism pose a major threat. This 
form of criticism of capitalist society has a long, and continuing, 
history, and its anti-democratic tendencies have been frequently noted. For 
some this failure of individual tastes represents an unchangeable outcome, 
but to others the extension of education could provide a desired solution, 
which would make consumer sovereignty acceptable. 
 
The question of proslavery racism among the critics of capitalism may also 
not be as sharp a distinction as Levy argues. It is not that the critics 
were not, by today's standards, or even by the standards of that time, 
racist. The problem is in trying to find any at that time who were not 
explicitly or implicitly racist. The distinction would be between those who 
regarded racial characteristics as genetic and not changeable, and those 
who believed that with the passage of time, and the expansion of education 
and labor, the marks of racial inferiority would be eliminated. At times 
the argument about proslavery beliefs seems to shift ground, as Dickens, 
usually placed in the antislavery camp, is considered somewhat proslavery, 
both because he thought slavery could be reformed so that immediate 
abolitionism was not necessary, and also because his _Hard Times_ pointed 
to the greater evils of wage slavery in contrast with chattel slavery. By 
such criteria, of course, the percentage of the British population to be 
considered proslavery can be greatly expanded. 
 
The focus on the proslavery belief of the critics of capitalism is the 
most-frequently discussed issue in this book. There are, however, other, 
quite interesting and informative discussions, of Mill, Macauley, and Smith 
-- three of the heroes because of their concerns with the diffusion of the 
benefits of economic growth, as well as Harriet Martineau and Bishop 
Berkeley. At times the concern with language leads in unclear directions, 
but, in general, this a very useful and thought- provoking contribution to 
the study of the history of the "Dismal Science." 
 
 
Stanley L. Engerman is co-editor (with Robert Gallman) of _The Cambridge 
Economic History of the United States_. 
 
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