IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v44y2022i1p72-94_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economists And The Combination Laws: A Reappraisal

Author

Listed:
  • Hupfel, Simon

Abstract

The repeal of the British Combination Laws in 1824 is generally considered by historians as the landmark of modern trade unionism, and has been attributed to the contributions of classical political economists. In the sole article that addressed this issue in the field of the history of economic thought, William Grampp reached the opposite conclusion, according to which the influence of the economists (John Ramsay McCulloch, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, Robert Torrens, and Nassau William Senior) on repeal was actually small. Resituating the debates over the Combination Laws in their political context, we try to show, despite the relatively reduced volume of the classical economists’ direct contributions, that the economists were clearly favorable to the measure, and how “political economy” played a significant role in the achievement of repeal. In doing so, we offer a reflection on the methodology used by Grampp to study the influence of economic ideas on political debates and public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Hupfel, Simon, 2022. "The Economists And The Combination Laws: A Reappraisal," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 72-94, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:44:y:2022:i:1:p:72-94_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1053837220000528/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:cup:jhisec:v:44:y:2022:i:1:p:72-94_4. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    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.