Political Economy

2. Mistakes about Political Economy. A great many mistakes are made about the science we are going to consider by people who ought to know better. These mistakes often arise from people thinking that they understand all about political economy without studying it. No ordinary person of sense ventures to contradict a chemist about chemistry, or an astronomer about eclipses, or even a geologist about rocks and fossils. But everybody has his opinion one way or another about bad trade, or the effect of high wages, or the harm of being underbid by cheap labour, or any one of hundreds of questions of social importance. It does not occur to such people that these matters are really more difficult to understand than chemistry, or astronomy, or geology, and that a lifetime of study is not sufficient to enable us to speak confidently about them. Yet, they who have never studied political economy at all, are usually the most confident.

The fact is that, just as physical science was formerly hated, so now there is a kind of ignorant dislike and impatience of political economy. People wish to follow their own impulses and prejudices, and are vexed when told that they are doing just what will have the opposite effect to that which they intend. Take the case of so-called charity. There are many good-hearted people who think that it is virtuous to give alms to poor people who ask for them, without considering the effect produced upon the people. They see the pleasure of the beggar on getting the alms, but they do not see the after effects, namely, that beggars become more numerous than before.

54. Professional Trades-Unions. We often hear the proceedings of trades-unions upheld on the ground that lawyers, doctors, and other professional men have their societies, Inns of Court, or other unions, which are no better than trades-unions. This is what may be called a tu quoque (thou also) argument. "We may form unions because you form unions." It is a poor kind of argument at best; one man acting unwisely is no excuse for another doing so likewise. I am quite willing to allow that many of the rules of barristers and solicitors are no better than those of trades-unions. That a barrister must begin to be a barrister by eating certain dinners; that he must never take a fee under a certain amount; that he must never communicate with a client except through a solicitor; that a senior counsel must always have a junior; and most of the rules of the so-called etiquette are clearly intended to raise the profits of the legal profession. Many things of this kind want reform. But, on the other hand, these unions avoid many of the faults of trades-unions. There is no limit to the number of persons who may enter them; all men of good character and sufficient knowledge can become barristers and solicitors. Moreover, the entrance to the legal, medical, and several other professions is being more and more regulated by examinations, which are intended purely to secure able men for the service of the public. Nor is any attempt made in these professional trades-unions to prevent men from exerting themselves as much as they can, so as to serve the public to the utmost of their ability.