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------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (March 2007)

James P. Huzel, _The Popularization of Malthus in Early 
Nineteenth-Century England: Martineau, Cobbett and the Pauper Press_. 
Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006. xv + 266 pp. $100 (hardcover), ISBN: 
0-7546-5427-3.

Reviewed for EH.NET by David M. Levy, Department of Economics, George 
Mason University and Sandra J. Peart, Department of Economics, 
Baldwin-Wallace College.


Introduction

James Huzel characterizes his research reported in this marvelous 
book as a continuation of that found in two reevaluations of T. R. 
Malthus's ideas, Donald Winch's _Poverty and Riches_ (1996) and 
Samuel Hollander's _The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus_ (1997). 
While Winch locates Malthus's arguments in the larger intellectual 
discussion and Hollander tackles of question of Malthus's coherence 
as an economic theorist, Huzel explores the popular controversy over 
Malthus and that most malthusian act of legislation, the 1834 New 
Poor Law which conditioned poor relief with sumptuary controls.

Huzel argues that Malthus is the moving spirit in replacing the 
"moral economy" with the market economy. If the Old Poor Law, which 
conferred a right to public assistance in cases of distress, is the 
paradigm of the moral economy, then the New Poor Law is one of policy 
visualized as exchange (Levy and Peart, 2005). Huzel, conscious of 
the need to guard against interested misrepresentations, as well as 
some of Malthus's self-inflicted infelicities -- is moral restraint 
possible? -- begins by providing an overview of Malthus's thought and 
influence. He pays a good deal of attention to Malthus's development 
over the editions of _Population and Political Economy_. The chapter 
titles suggest what each of them contains: Harriet Martineau: The 
Female Malthusian?; Cobbett against the Parson; The Radical Working 
Class Press against the Malthusian Crew. Pages 197-218 of the 
"Radical Working Class" chapter focus on the pro-contraceptive 
movement, in particular, Francis Place and John Stuart Mill.

Huzel's book will help the reader shake off the bane of all careful 
Malthusian scholarship -- the interpretation that reads "natural 
selection" back into Malthus by taking choice out of the marriage 
decision (Peart and Levy 2005a; Levy and Peart, 2006). Huzel calls 
attention (pp. 212-13) to a revealing paragraph that Malthus added to 
the 1817 edition in which he considers how the system of equality 
proposed by Robert Owen would affect the age of marriage. In a system 
of equality, everyone's children are supported by everyone else. When 
people realize, as they will, that this creates an unsupportable 
increase in population they will come to realize that the assignment 
of individual responsibility is preferable. We quote the entire 
paragraph:

	Let us suppose that in a system of equality, in spite of the 
	best exertions to procure more food, the population is 
pressing 	hard against the limits of subsistence, and all are 
becoming 	very poor. It is evidently necessary under these 
circumstances, 	in order to prevent the society from starving, that 
the rate at 	which the population increases should be retarded. 
But who are 	the persons that are to exercise the restraint thus 
called for, 	and either to marry late or not at all? It does not 
seem to be a 	necessary consequence of a system of equality that 
all the human 	passions should be at once extinguished by it; but if 
not, those 	who might wish to marry would feel it hard that they 
should be 	among the number forced to restrain their 
inclinations. As all 	would be equal, and in similar circumstances, 
there would be no 	reason whatever why one individual should 
think himself obliged 	to practise the duty of restraint more than 
another. The thing 	however must be done, with any hope of 
avoiding universal 	misery; and in a state of equality, the 
necessary restraint 	could only be effected by some general law. 
But how is this law 	to be supported, and how are the violations 
of it to be 	punished? Is the man who marries early to be pointed 
at with the 	finger of scorn? is he to be whipped at the cart's 
tail? is he 	to be confined for years in a prison? is he to have 
his children 	exposed? Are not all direct punishments for an 
offence of this 	kind shocking and unnatural to the last 
degree? And yet, if it 	be absolutely necessary, in order to prevent 
the most 	overwhelming wretchedness, that there should be some 
restraint 	on the tendency to early marriages, when the 
resources of the 	country are only sufficient to support a slow 
rate of increase, 	can the most fertile imagination conceive one 
at once so 	natural, so just, so consonant to the laws of God and 
to the 	best laws framed by the most enlightened men, as that each 
	individual should be responsible for the maintenance of his 
own 	children; that is, that he should be subjected to the natural 
	inconveniences and difficulties arising from the indulgence 
of 	his inclinations, and to no other whatever? (1826, III III ??? 
16)
One of the nicest features of Huzel's book is that he emphasizes the 
extraordinarily personal nature of the attacks on those who followed 
Malthus. For instance, Harriet Martineau's contemporary critics made 
her out to be masculine (pp. 78-89). Huzel asks: why her and not Jane 
Marcet, a Malthusian of a decade earlier? His answer is that 
Martineau's deep radicalism, her support of the New Poor Law, her 
anti-slavery, her anti-monopoly positions all threatened many 
dimensions of hierarchy. Three decades later, another opponent of 
hierarchy, John Stuart Mill (who plays a minor role in Huzel's 
account) was shown in feminine attire by his opponents (Peart and 
Levy, 2007).

Market Economics v. Moral Economy

Huzel's prefatory comments about the replacement of the moral economy 
by the market economy deserve further exploration. As economists we 
know a good deal about the market economy. Consider marriage. In the 
_Wealth of Nations_ Adam Smith explains how higher wages in America 
encourage earlier marriage in American than in Europe (1776, I 8 ??? 
23). In the next sentence he remarks that: "A young widow with four 
or five young children, who, among the middling or inferior ranks of 
people in Europe, would have so little chance for a second husband, 
is there frequently courted as a sort of fortune." Early marriages 
leads to large families and to a population growing at a rate which 
doubles every twenty-years (1776, I 8 ??? 23). What makes Smith's 
economics of population so remarkable is that it is purely a matter 
of contracting agents who accept the responsibility for supporting 
their children.

A moral economy seems to be linked instead by non-contractual 
obligations. This is certainly how the moral economy is defended by 
William Cobbett (Huzel, pp. 126-49). The imperative that Smith evades 
but Malthus confronts is that marriage supports chastity, i.e., 
sexual relationship inside and only inside marriage (Levy, 1978 and 
1999). Individuals who follow moral imperatives in spite of material 
interest, e.g., marrying early to preserve chastity, create an 
obligation on the part of society for support in case of distress.

We propose to focus on the attacks on two of Huzel's subjects, 
Martineau and Place, published in the 1830s in _Fraser's Magazine for 
Town and Country_. _Fraser's_ is remembered both as the first 
important Victorian periodical to publish portraits of literary 
celebrities (Bates 1874, 1883; Houghton 1972, p. 305; Fisher, 2006) 
and as the periodical most associated with the literary, "progressive 
conservative," opposition to political economy (Thrall, 1934, pp. 
147-58). "Progressive conservatism" catches the fact that the debate 
between market economy and moral economy is not carried out along a 
single dimension. The greatest of "progressive conservative" 
thinkers, Thomas Carlyle, who had been associated with _Fraser's_ 
from its first issue in February 1830, chose to publish his defense 
of slavery, "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question," in the 
December 1849 issue. Carlyle exemplified the tendency to slide 
between justifying following moral imperatives and justifying 
following the commands of superiors (Peart and Levy, 2005).

_Fraser's_ does not get much attention in Huzel's book. He discusses 
the _Fraser's_ review of Martineau's Malthusian novel briefly (p. 
76), but passes over the Daniel Maclise portrait of Martineau 
accompanied by William Maginn's abuse at Martineau (Maginn and 
Maclise, 1833; Bates, 1874, pp. 114-16; Bates, 1883, pp. 206-12). 
Consider a controversy between market economists and moral 
economists, those who hold exchange as central against those who take 
obligation to as central. How will the dispute be conducted? From the 
point of view of the market economists, the moralist economists are 
not doing their calculations incorrectly. Controversy is largely a 
matter of reworking arguments in different words. From the point of 
view of the moral economists, because the market economists are 
denying all but contractual obligations, there is something wrong 
with _them_. Bad calculations on one side; bad people on the other 
side. Considerations of scarcity are critical in the Malthusian 
debates (Waterman, 1991). Scarcity is a fact for market economists, 
it is a failing for the moral economists because it is seen as 
evidence that someone wants what they should not want.

How do you show that people are bad? Gossip, caricature. That brings 
us back to _Fraser's_. Malthus's recommendation to deal with scarcity 
by delaying marriage until one could reasonably expect to support the 
consequent children, the "preventive check," was the center of 
things. The 1832 review of Harriet Martineau's novels, attributed to 
_Fraser's_ editor William Maginn, reflected the radicalism of the 
proposal to delay marriage:

	Morality and marriage must ever subsist in a state in 
	correlative proportions. To decrease the prevalence of 
marriage 	is to increase the prevalence of immorality. This the 
whole 	experience of mankind informs us. ....
	But we will allow the existence, to a limited extent, of this 
	falsely-called "moral restraint," in London; -- and there we 
	immediately find its necessary concomitant; to wit, about 
30,000 	prostitutes (1832, p. 413).

The review closed scandalized by the fact that a young woman wrote 
against marriage.

A Maclise portrait of Martineau appeared the next year. Words 
attributed to Maginn which accompany Maclise's portrait claim that by 
looking at her picture, one can see why she is a Malthusian.

	doubtless, one of the first works the literary antiquary of 
	future centuries will consult must be _Fraser's Magazine_, by 
	the delineation of her countenance, figure, posture, and 
	occupation, which will be found on the opposite plate. He 
will 	readily agree with us, after proper inspection, that it no 
great 	wonder that the lady should be pro-Malthusian; and that not 
even 	the Irish beau, suggested to her by a Tory songster, is 
likely 	to attempt the seduction of the fair philosopher from the 
	doctrines of no-population (Maginn and Maclise, 1833, p.576; 
	Bates, 1874, p. 114)).

Scholars who have studied the Maclise image suggest that Martineau is 
rendered masculine in the picture (Fisher, 2006, pp. 120-23). Other 
evidence of a masculinization of Martineau is given by Huzel (pp. 
74-78).

See: http://eh.net/graphics/bookreviews/harriet.martineau.png

The attack on Martineau is so ugly that it puzzles latter-day friends 
of _Fraser's_. Thrall (1934, p. 311) calls this "one of the most 
contemptible attacks in the magazine." Earlier, Bates (1883, p. 211) 
uses "ungallant" defending _Fraser's_ only relative to the 
_Quarterly's_ "coarse and ungenerous" allegation that Martineau 
proposed contraception. That is a lie (Huzel, p. 75).

Ugly needs to seen in context. Malthus and Martineau accepted the 
religious universe which carried the imperatives that underlay the 
moral economy. Francis Place did not. This is how Maginn's commentary 
in _Fraser's_ on the Maclise portrait of Place begins:

	The hero was found, we believe, in a dust-pan, upon the steps 
of 	a house in St. James's Place, about sixty years back, by an 
	honest Charlie. Who forthwith conveyed him to the next 
	workhouse, where (for those were unenlightened times) the 
little 	stranger was kindly take care of. He was christened Francis, 
	that being the surname of his wet-nurse; while, in lieu of 
	patronymie, they gave him Place, as a memorial of the 
locality 	where he had been discovered. Such were the bulrushes 
out of 	which Westminster drew the future Moses of the Preventive 
Check, 	-- a philosophical decalogue well worthy to supersede the 
first, 	which it so boldly contracts in the absurd article about 
murder.
	The Mount Sinai of the new lawgiver .... Place has erected 
his 	grand Mill-dam, for the salutary purpose of asserting this 
same 	tide ... (Maginn 1836, p. 427).

See: http://eh.net/graphics/bookreviews/francis.place.png

Houghton's judgment in the _Wellesley Index_ is that save for the 
clever contraceptive reference to a certain J (J.S.?) Mill, this is a 
tissue of lies (Houghton, 1972, p. 306). He is puzzled -- "an 
anti-Semitic slur?" -- since the references to the Hebrew Scriptures 
are rather unsubtle but Place was not Jewish.

Huzel (p. 87) asks why the gender attacks on Martineau and not on 
Jane Marcet? One answer is that the New Poor Law was a viable threat 
to the moral economy. If Malthus is the arch-enemy of the moral 
economy, then it is important that the idea behind the New Poor Law 
can be found in the first edition of Malthus's _Population_:

	Lastly, for cases of extreme distress, county workhouses 
might 	be established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom, 
and 	free for persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations. 
The 	fare should be hard, and those that were able obliged to 
work. 	It would be desirable that they should not be considered as 
	comfortable asylums in all difficulties; but merely as places 
	where severe distress might find some alleviation. A part of 
	these houses might be separated, or others built for a most 
	beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently taken 
notice 	of, that of providing a place, where any person, whether 
native 	or foreigner, might do a day's work at all times and receive 
the 	market price for it. Many cases would undoubtedly be left for 
	the exertion of individual benevolence (1798, 5 ??? 25).

Nassau Senior's study of international experience verified this early 
intuition.

	But in all the countries which we have been considering, 
except 	the Canton de Berne and perhaps Denmark, the great object of 
	pauper legislation, that of rendering the situation of the 
	pauper less agreeable than that of the independent labourer, 
has 	been effectually attained (Senior, 1835, 88).

Conclusion

Huzel's valuable study brings to light with enormous care the early 
nineteenth century disputes between adherents of the moral economy 
and the market economy. When we reflect upon the present debates 
about the global economy, markets and culture, we may ask whether we 
have ever settled the issues. We suspect not.

References:

Bates, William. [1874]. _A Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters 
(1830-1838) Drawn by the Late Daniel Maclise, R.A. and Accompanied by 
Notices Chiefly by the Late William Maginn, LL.D._ London: Chatto and 
Windus.

Bates, William. 1883. _The Maclise Portrait-Gallery of "Illustrious 
Literary Characters" with Memoirs Biographical, Critical, 
Bibliographical & Anecdotal Illustrative of the Literature of the 
Former Half of the Present Century_. London: Chatto and Windus.

Fisher, Judith L. 2006. "'In the Present Famine of Anything 
Substantial': Fraser's 'Portraits' and the Construction of Literary 
Celebrity; or, 'Personality, Personality Is the Appetite of the 
Age.'" _Victorian Periodicals Review_ 39: 97-135.

Houghton, Walter E. 1972. "_Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country_: 
1830-1882." _The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals_. Toronto: 
University of Toronto Press, pp. 303-521.

Levy, David M. 1978. "Some Normative Aspects of the Malthusian 
Controversy." _History of Political Economy_ 10: 271-85.

Levy, David M. 1999. "Christianity or Malthusianism: The Invisibility 
of a Successful Radicalism." _Historical Reflections/R???flexions 
Historiques_ 25: 61-93.

Levy, David M. and Sandra J. Peart. 2005 "The Theory of Economic 
Policy in British Classical Political Economy: A Sympathetic 
Reading." _History of Political Economy_ 37 _Supplement: The Role of 
Government in the History of Economic Thought_ (2005): 120-42.

Levy, David M. and Sandra J. Peart. 2006. "Charles Kingsley and the 
Theological Interpretation of Natural Selection." _Journal of 
Bioeconomics_. 8: 197-218.

Malthus, T. R. 1798. _An Essay on the Principle of Population as It 
Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the 
Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers_. London: 
J. Johnson. http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPop.html

Malthus, T. R. 1826. _An Essay on the Principle of Population: A View 
of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness; with an Inquiry 
into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal or Mitigation of the 
Evils which It Occasions_. London: John Murray. Sixth edition. 
http://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPlong.html

[Maginn, William.] 1832. "National Economy. No. III. Miss Martineau's 
Cousin Marshall -- The Preventive Check." _Fraser's Magazine for Town 
and Country_ 6: 403-13.

[Maginn, William and Daniel Maclise] 1833. "Gallery of Literary 
Character. No. 42. Miss Harriet Martineau." _Fraser's Magazine for 
Town and Country_ 8: 576.

[Maginn, William and Daniel Maclise.] 1836. "Gallery of Literary 
Character. No. 71. Mr. Francis Place, Esq." _Fraser's Magazine for 
Town and Country_ 13:427.

Peart, Sandra J. and David M. Levy. 2005a. "Happiness, Progress and 
'the Vanity of the Philosopher." 
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2005/PeartLevymalthus.html

Peart, Sandra J. and David M. Levy. 2005b. _The "Vanity of the 
Philosopher": From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical 
Economics_. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Peart, Sandra J. and David M. Levy. 2007. "Economics in Cartoons." 
Presented at the History of Economics Society / Allied Social 
Sciences Association. Chicago.

Senior, Nassau W. 1835. _Statement of the Provision of the Poor_. 
London: B. Fellows.

Smith, Adam. 1776. _An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the 
Wealth of Nations_. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., ed. Edwin Cannan, 
1904. Fifth edition. http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html

Thrall, Miriam M. H. 1934. _Rebellious Fraser's, Nol Yorkes Magazine 
in the Days of Maginn, Thackeray and Carlyle_. New York: Columbia 
University Press.

Waterman, A. M. C. 1991. _Revolution, Economics and Religion: 
Christian Political Economy 1798-1833_. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press.


Sandra Peart and David M. Levy are the authors of _The "Vanity of the 
Philosopher": From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical 
Economics_. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (2005). Beginning 
in August, Peart will become Dean of the Jepson School of Leadership 
Studies at the University of Richmond. Levy is the Director of the 
Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University.

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