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receiving an LL.B. in 1888. In 1889-90 he practiced law in Saint Paul, Minn.; in 1890-91 he studied in the post-graduate department of History and Economics of Johns Hopkins University; in 1891-92 he was Instructor in Elementary Law at the University of Wisconsin. In 1892 he was promoted to the position of Assistant Professor of Civil Polity, which position he resigned March, 1893, to accept the call to South Dakota. Mr. Parkinson is a member of the Historical and Political Science Association of Madison, Wis.

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Le capital, la spéculation et la finance au XIXe siècle. Claudio JanneT, professeur d'économie politique à l'Institut catholique de Paris. Pp. vi and 608. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1892.

This study, not of the one thing which capital does, but of the thousand things which are done with capital, is written by a man who understands with his intellect the operations of "the street," though his heart is far from them. The formation of the wealthy classes and alleged historic injustice, capitalistic production in industry and commerce, floating capital and the general money market, the unearned increment and speculation in real estate, stock companies, business morals, commercial speculation, trusts and industrial syndicates, "the street" and its part in the economy of modern society, public borrowing and international finance—such are some of his topics. Systematic his treatment of them is not, nor does he reach general conclusions which admit of concise restatement. His general tendency is optimistic at least as often as his facts will warrant. For example, after noting the decline of the rate of interest, which is objectively explained by reference to the increase of capital, M. Jannet says (p. 539), "The economic law is here the expression of a great law of the . moral order: wealth acquired by the labor of one's ancestors loses its importance little by little as over against present labor; exemption from personal labor for the descendants of the most favored families cannot last forever; there will always come the necessity for personal labor to invigorate and renew wealth." How far the decline in the rate of interest is really due to the increased supply of capital relatively to the demand for it; how far a further objective explanation

of the decline can be found in the increasing average security of investments, and how far a subjective explanation must be sought in the gradual change in men's esteem of future as compared with present goods, M. Jannet does not ask; nor does he inquire whether all these causes of the decline of interest-if, indeed, they all be causes are likely to operate in the future. Still a considerable change in any one of them might invalidate his consoling conclusion.

The existence of many evils, more or less closely connected with the use of credit, M. Jannet does not deny. On the contrary, his condemnations of the manipulation of the market by fraudulent rumors, of the bribery of the press by the promoters of doubtful speculations, etc., are emphatic, and are supported by a wealth of fresh detail. Close observation of the world of money is indeed traceable upon almost every page of the book, but everywhere also the influence of ecclesiastical training. M. Jannet sees, apparently, nothing incongruous in judging the decision of the court in the Mogul Steamship Company cases by the light of the schoolmen's conceptions of pretium justum supremum, medium, infimum; the London Economist and the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas repeatedly figure in close proximity in his notes.

The beneficent designs of Providence being assumed, a natural remedy for such evils as exist is "the union of honest men upon the financial field," for "banking and financial affairs, conducted according to the principles of morality, and upon the basis of scientific data, cannot fail to give profits proportioned to the services rendered." It must be pleasant to believe that.

Cornell University.

CHARLES H. HULL.

Grundriss der politischen Oekonomie, Von Dr. EUGEN VON PHILIP-
POVICH. Erster Band; Allgemeine Volkswirthschaftslehre (aus
Handbuch des oeffentlichen Rechtes: Einleitungsband).
and 348. Leipzig: J. C. B. Mohr. 1893.

Pp. viii

What gives to this new book of Professor von Philippovich its special interest and value is the fact that its author occupies, as an economic thinker, a position midway between the Austrian and the German economists. In it he has understood how to sum up, in a compact form, what is best in the work of both schools. His ideas concerning scope and method, concerning value, price and money, reproduce, with unimportant modifications, the doctrines made classical by the writings of Menger and Böhm-Bawerk. On the other hand, in the general form of his work, in his constant use of statistics and more particularly in his books upon "production" and upon the

"economico-political parties," one sees plainly the influence of the Historical School.

Although a born Viennese and a former pupil of Professor Menger, Dr. von Philippovich has enjoyed, during the last eight years, an independent and, to some extent, isolated position as Professor of Political Economy at Freiburg. The results of this opportunity for independent thinking appear upon every page of his latest work. It is characterized throughout by an extreme temperateness of tone and fairness in the treatment of rival theories.

The volume designs to describe and explain the phenomena of our present industrial (“ Verkehrswirthschaftlicher") organization and the laws governing the relations of these phenomena to each other. It will be followed by a volume explaining the development which this organization is undergoing under the influence of different economic groups in society and of the State (" Volkswirthschaftspolitik ") and the series will be completed by a third volume treating of public finance.

In the opinion of Professor von Philippovich the treatment of theoretical political economy follows most naturally the lines laid down by industrial life itself; first comes the production of economic goods ("Produktion und Erwerb"), then the exchange of these goods upon the market and their transfer from place to place; third in order comes the income-formation growing out of this production and exchange, and finally the consumption of these goods. "These," he says, "are the fundamental facts of industrial life, no one indepen dent of the others, each one necessarily involved in the others, but, nevertheless, the plainly visible links in the unbroken chain of economic phenomena." In actual life, he continues, there are none of the sharp divisions assumed by science. Expediency alone must determine where the boundaries shall be placed. In the case of our science, it appears to Philippovich that the old division into production, exchange, distribution and consumption is, still, more expedient and less misleading than any less natural division; however calculated this latter may be to throw certain classes of hitherto neglected considerations into a desirable prominence.

Preceding the three books constituting the body of the work he has deemed it desirable to throw into one book a discussion of what he calls the "limitations upon the development of a people's economy" ("Entwickelungsbedingungen der Volkswirthschaft") i. e., the conditions of and motives to economic activity springing from the natural environment, the social organization and the personal characteristics of a people. The fifth and final book is more in the nature of an appendix to the Volkswirthschaftslehre proper. It

treats of the "economico-political parties," with especial reference, of course, to Germany.

In examining any system of economics the parts to which one naturally turns are: (1) the introductory portion, including the views advanced concerning (a) the starting point in economics, (b) scope and method of the science, (c) the nature of economic laws; (2) the chapters dealing with value, price and money; (3) the chapters upon distribution, and (4) the portion treating of consumption. In the following review we will take up the views of Philippovich in the order suggested.

I. Introductory. Economics has to do with all phenomena and institutions connected with the regular provision of mankind with material goods. Material goods are objects of desire only so far as they are deemed, rightly or wrongly, capable of satisfying wants. It is to satisfy their wants that men put forth economic activity. The starting point in economics is, therefore, an analysis of human wants as directing the activity, whose goal is the satisfaction of these wants through material goods. The means by which wants are satisfied are called technically goods. In the opinion of Philippovich, it is expedient to limit the connation of the term "economic goods" to material things. Economic goods are further (in distinction from free goods) only such things as are available for human employment in quantities limited in comparison with the real or supposed need for such things. In excluding from the category of economic goods (1) services and (2) legal rights and relations having value, Philippovich follows the lead of Sax and Wieser, in opposition to Böhm-Bawerk, who would include services, and to Menger, who would include both. He justifies his position by saying: "Services. are a means of creat ing goods, but are not goods themselves. They can be neither preserved nor accumulated in stock, nor produced through the employment of other goods; in short, they stand in sharp opposition to the material ends of economic action" (p. 5). In other words, in his opinion, the meaning of the term goods in economics should be fixed by a reference to production rather than to exchange. To Menger and Böhm-Bawerk the essential moment is the possession or non-possession of value. The term goods is one of the few in economics having a strictly technical sense. Whether this sense shall be limited, as Philippovich proposes, or not, is simply a question of scientific nomenclature to be decided by a reference to expediency. Professor Philippovich has maintained consistently throughout his whole book his narrower conception.

Being aware that the satisfaction of our wants is dependent upon economic goods, we ascribe to the latter value. The value of a good

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