IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v67y2008i3p481-527.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Anthropology in Economic Literature at the End of the 19th Century: Eugenic and Racial Explanations of Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Terenzio Maccabelli

Abstract

. At the end of the 19th century, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Otto Ammon founded a school of thought denominated “social anthropology” or “anthropo‐sociology,” aimed at placing racism on a scientific basis. Their intent was to create a new discipline into which the themes of biological heredity, natural selection, social stratification, and political organization were to converge. This paper intends to demonstrate the wide resonance that anthroposociology had in the economic literature, analyzing the thought of authors such as Carlos C. Closson, Vilfredo Pareto, and Thorstein Veblen. A particular focus will be on the racial and eugenic arguments used as explanation of social and economic inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Terenzio Maccabelli, 2008. "Social Anthropology in Economic Literature at the End of the 19th Century: Eugenic and Racial Explanations of Inequality," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 481-527, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:3:p:481-527
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00584.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00584.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2008.00584.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. E. Roy Weintraub, 2003. "Prejudice and the History of Economics: A Minisymposium," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 685-686, Winter.
    2. Thomas C. Leonard, 2003. "“More Merciful and Not Less Effective†: Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 687-712, Winter.
    3. Carlos C. Closson, 1899. "Further Data of Anthropo-Sociology," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(2), pages 238-238.
    4. Carlos C. Closson, 1896. "Recent Progress of Social-Anthropology," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 410-410.
    5. Vilfredo Pareto, 1897. "The New Theories of Economics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 485-485.
    6. Veblen, Thorstein, 1904. "Theory of Business Enterprise," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number veblen1904.
    7. Pareto, Vilfredo, 1897. "The New Theories of Economics," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 5.
    8. Malcolm Rutherford, 2005. "Comments on Four Papers on Economics and Human Heterogeneity," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 881-886, July.
    9. James A. Field, 1911. "The Progress of Eugenics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 26(1), pages 1-67.
    10. David M. Levy & Sandra J. Peart, 2003. "“Who Are the Canters?†The Coalition of Evangelical-Economic Egalitarians," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 731-757, Winter.
    11. J. J. Spengler, 1944. "Pareto on Population, I," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 58(4), pages 571-601.
    12. William Coleman, 2003. "Anti-Semitism in Anti-economics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 759-777, Winter.
    13. Veblen, Thorstein, 1898. "Why Economics is not an Evolutionary Science," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 12.
    14. Thomas C. Leonard, 2005. "Retrospectives: Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 207-224, Fall.
    15. Levy, David M. & Peart, Sandra J., 2004. "Statistical prejudice: from eugenics to immigrants," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 5-22, March.
    16. J. J. Spengler, 1944. "Pareto on Population, II," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 59(1), pages 107-133.
    17. Peart, Sandra J. & Levy, David M., 2003. "Denying Human Homogeneity: Eugenics & The Making of Post-Classical Economics," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 261-288, September.
    18. Carlos C. Closson, 1898. "The Pedagogical Significance of the Cephalic Index," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(2), pages 254-254.
    19. Carlos C. Closson, 1900. "A Critic of Anthropo-Sociology," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(3), pages 397-397.
    20. Bradley W. Bateman, 2003. "Race, Intellectual History, and American Economics: A Prolegomenon to the Past," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 713-730, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annie L. Cot, 2005. "“Breed Out the Unfit and Breed In the Fit”," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 793-826, July.
    2. Thomas C. Leonard, 2005. "Protecting Family and Race," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 757-791, July.
    3. Poitras, Geoffrey, 2018. "The pre-history of econophysics and the history of economics: Boltzmann versus the marginalists," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 507(C), pages 89-98.
    4. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2015. "From equilibrium to autopoiesis: A Luhmannian reading of Veblenian evolutionary economics," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 143-155.
    5. Jianxi Su & Edward Furman, 2016. "A form of multivariate Pareto distribution with applications to financial risk measurement," Papers 1607.04737, arXiv.org.
    6. Leonard, Thomas C., 2009. "Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 37-51, July.
    7. Víctor A. Beker, 2021. "Economics and pluralism," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4435, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    8. Luca Fiorito & Cosma Orsi, 2012. "Anti-Semitism and Progressive Era Social Science. The case of John R. Commons," Department of Economics University of Siena 658, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    9. Qigang Yuan & Yanping Zhao & Hui Shang & Wei Zhang & Zaghum Umar, 2016. "Financing constraints on the size distribution of industrial firms: the Chinese experience," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(41), pages 3899-3911, September.
    10. Nick Cowen, 2018. "Mill’s radical end of laissez-faire: A review essay of the political economy of progress: John Stuart Mill and modern radicalism," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 373-386, September.
    11. Clifford F. Thies & Ryan Daza, 2011. "Richard T. Ely: The Confederate Flag of the AEA?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 8(2), pages 147-156, May.
    12. Guillermo José Escudé, 2014. "Addressing the Poverty of Mainstream Economics," Working Papers hal-01233851, HAL.
    13. Lemos, Stella Vannucci & Salgado, Alexandre Pereira & Duarte, Alexandre & de Souza, Marco Antonio Alves & de Almeida Antunes, Fernanda, 2019. "Agroindustrial best practices that contribute to technical efficiency in Brazilian sugar and ethanol production mills," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 397-411.
    14. Anne Mayhew, 2018. "An Introduction to Institutional Economics: Tools for Understanding Evolving Economies," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 63(1), pages 3-17, March.
    15. Wang, Qiuping A., 2021. "Principle of least effort vs. maximum efficiency: deriving Zipf-Pareto's laws," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 153(P1).
    16. Pasinetti, Luigi L., 2021. "Economic theory and institutions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 438-442.
    17. Tae-Hee Jo, 2013. "Saving Private Business Enterprises," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 447-467, April.
    18. Richard Nielsen, 2013. "Whistle-Blowing Methods for Navigating Within and Helping Reform Regulatory Institutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 385-395, February.
    19. Jack High, 2011. "Dr. Anderson and the Austrians: Price formation as a cumulative process," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 199-211, June.
    20. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2023. "Stakeholder theory: Toward a classical institutional economics perspective," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 188(1), pages 75-88.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:67:y:2008:i:3:p:481-527. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.