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SIR JAMES STEUART An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy. London, A.Millar and T.Cadell 1767 2 volumes, quarto, fine contemporary pale calf, covers a little rubbed, spines richly gilt with six raised bands, red and green morocco labels lettered gilt, marbled endpapers, xvpp + (1p) errata + (6) + 639pp; (8) + 646pp + (6) + (1) errata, 2 folding tables, some foxing to five leaves in volume I, ownership in ink on blank leaf to both volumes of M.Wyvill, a most attractive copy. Provenance: Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, Member of Parliament for Richmond 1795-98. Kress 6498. Goldsmith 10276. Blaug, Great Economists before Keynes, pp.241-242. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p.176. Palgrave, III, pp.475-476. FIRST EDITION. The first important English work on political economy. James Steuart (1712-1780) is represented as someone who produced a systematic treatment of economics, but in pre-Physiocratic form. Although his book was first published in 1767, the main elements of the argument were established in isolation in Germany in the late 1750’s. David Hume is reported as being critical of the ‘form and style’ of the work but ‘exceedingly pleased’ with it as an ‘ingenious performance’ when he looked it over in manuscript in 1766. Whilst Steuart’s interventionist economic principles provoked Adam Smith to refute them in The Wealth of Nations, recent commentary has emphasized the continuity in Scottish economic thought from David Hume to James Steuart to Adam Smith. He gradually enjoyed some attention from the members of the German Historical School in the 19th Century. More recently he has been hailed as a forerunner of the ‘economics of control’ and the concept of development planning. Steuart also wrote an important but rarely found work on Indian currency The Principles of Money applied to the present state of the coin of Bengal 1772. £12,500 |
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