----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Greg Clark gave my book, The Invention of Capitalism, a good-natured, but dismissive review. I expected a more substantive analysis from Greg. Perhaps he thought that merely associating me with Karl Marx or Chico Marx would be enough for some people to write off my book. Greg offered a slightly more real critique, rebuking me for criticizing the classical political economists for not mentioning the Game Laws. Taken out of context, my position might seem rather silly. After all, at first glance the Game Laws might seem to be an obscure concern, hardly worth any notice today. At the time, however, the Game Laws were having a profound effect on society. The Game Laws prohibited the vast majority of farmers from disturbing animals that ate their grain. For example, in the 1840s, game destroyed an estimated quarter of the crops of Buckinghamshire (Horn 1981, 179). Groups of wealthy hunters were permitted to chase their prey across farmers' fields on horseback. One fox hunt trampled crops on a 28 mile run. You can only imagine the immense destruction of crops. The Game Laws had a human dimension as well. In Wiltshire alone, more than 1,300 persons were imprisoned under the Game Laws in the fifteen years after the battle at Waterloo in 1815, more than twice the number for the previous fifty years (Munsche 1980, 138). Between 1820 and 1827, nearly a quarter of those committed to prison were convicted of poaching (Shaw 1966, 155). The number of convictions was undoubtedly understated because the Justices of the Peace who heard cases frequently neglected to record them (Hay 1975, 192). Poaching was taken so seriously that it was, on occasion, even equated with treason. The British courts enforced these laws with shocking ferocity. Several poachers were actually executed under the famous Black Acts (Thompson 1975, 68). The Game Laws also caught up innocent people. Wealthy landowners installed lethal spring guns and man traps to protect their game from poachers. Many of the victims of these instruments were children just playing outside. The strongest defense of the Game Laws was that they gave the idle gentry a reason to take interest in their lands. Little account was taken of the immense suffering that they entailed or of the The Game Laws created far more damage than the Corn Laws, which agitated so many political economists of the time. Why, then, did the classical political economists spill so much ink regarding the Corn Laws and let the Game Laws pass unnoticed? For Clark, my questioning this lack of interest on the part of the classical political economists seemed frivolous, or worse, an indication that I was indulging in some sort of Roswellian conspiracy theory. In truth, no conspiracy was necessary. While the Corn Laws seemed to threaten profits, the Game Laws augmented them. By depriving poor people of a traditional food source and requiring them to purchase substitutes on the market, the Game Laws forced people into labor markets, holding down wages. Perhaps, I am being uncharitable in attributing class interests to the political economists. In fact, I found a curious pattern among their writings. While in their theoretical works they often praised the natural efficiencies of markets, in their letters and diaries and less theoretical works, they took a keen interest in finding ways to manipulate conditions in the countryside. Sometimes, such interests even crept into their theoretical work, as in the case of the first edition of Ricardo, the great opponent of the Corn Laws, who worried that the price of food was too low in Ireland because Irish people could get by too easily without engaging in wage labor. The offending passage was removed from the second edition. Over the years, I have followed Greg's writings although I do not always agree with his conclusions. Generally, Greg stoutly defends markets as being beneficial. I would expect him to find my book uncongenial. Rather than to claim that I have been wronged in some way, I believe that the best course is to leave the verdict up to other readers. References Hay, Douglas. 1975. "Poaching and the Game Laws on Cannock Chase." In Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh and Edward P. Thompson, eds. Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Pantheon Books): pp. 189-254. Horn, Pamela. 1981. The Rural World, 1750: Social Change in the English Countryside (New York: St. Martin's Press). Munsche, P. B. 1980. Gentlemen and Poachers: The English Game Laws 1671-1831 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Shaw, A.G. 1966. Convicts and the Colonies (London: Faber and Faber)[ Thompson, E. P. 1975. Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (New York: Pantheon). Michael Perelman California State University Chico ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]