In Utopia there is no distinct and separate science of economics. Many problems that we should regard as economic come within the scope of Utopian psychology5. My Utopians make two divisions of the science of psychology, first, the general psychology of individuals, a sort of mental physiology6 separated by no definite line from physiology proper, and secondly7, the psychology of relationship between individuals. This second is an exhaustive study of the reaction of people upon each other and of all possible relationships. It is a science of human aggregations8, of all possible family groupings, of neighbours and neighbourhood, of companies, associations, unions, secret and public societies, religious groupings, of common ends and intercourse10, and of the methods of intercourse and collective decision that hold human groups together, and finally of government and the State. The elucidation11 of economic relationships, depending as it does on the nature of the hypothesis of human aggregation9 actually in operation at any time, is considered to be subordinate and subsequent to this general science of Sociology. Political economy and economics, in our world now, consist of a hopeless muddle12 of social assumptions and preposterous13 psychology, and a few geographical14 and physical generalisations. Its ingredients will be classified out and widely separated in Utopian thought. On the one hand there will be the study of physical economies, ending in the descriptive treatment of society as an organisation15 for the conversion16 of all the available energy in nature to the material ends of mankind — a physical sociology which will be already at such a stage of practical development as to be giving the world this token coinage representing energy — and on the other there will be the study of economic problems as problems in the division of labour, having regard to a social organisation whose main ends are reproduction and education in an atmosphere of personal freedom. Each of these inquiries17, working unencumbered by the other, will be continually contributing fresh valid18 conclusions for the use of the practical administrator19.
In no region of intellectual activity will our hypothesis of freedom from tradition be of more value in devising a Utopia than here. From its beginning the earthly study of economics has been infertile20 and unhelpful, because of the mass of unanalysed and scarcely suspected assumptions upon which it rested. The facts were ignored that trade is a bye-product and not an essential factor in social life, that property is a plastic and fluctuating convention, that value is capable of impersonal21 treatment only in the case of the most generalised requirements. Wealth was measured by the standards of exchange. Society was regarded as a practically unlimited22 number of avaricious23 adult units incapable24 of any other subordinate groupings than business partnerships25, and the sources of competition were assumed to be inexhaustible. Upon such quicksands rose an edifice26 that aped the securities of material science, developed a technical jargon27 and professed28 the discovery of “laws.” Our liberation from these false presumptions29 through the rhetoric30 of Carlyle and Ruskin and the activities of the Socialists31, is more apparent than real. The old edifice oppresses us still, repaired and altered by indifferent builders, underpinned32 in places, and with a slight change of name. “Political Economy” has been painted out, and instead we read “Economics — under entirely33 new management.” Modern Economics differs mainly from old Political Economy in having produced no Adam Smith. The old “Political Economy” made certain generalisations, and they were mostly wrong; new Economics evades generalisations, and seems to lack the intellectual power to make them. The science hangs like a gathering34 fog in a valley, a fog which begins nowhere and goes nowhere, an incidental, unmeaning inconvenience to passers-by. Its most typical exponents35 display a disposition36 to disavow generalisations altogether, to claim consideration as “experts,” and to make immediate37 political application of that conceded claim. Now Newton, Darwin, Dalton, Davy, Joule, and Adam Smith did not affect this “expert” hankey-pankey, becoming enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science. In this state of impotent expertness, however, or in some equally unsound state, economics must struggle on — a science that is no science, a floundering lore38 wallowing in a mud of statistics — until either the study of the material organisation of production on the one hand as a development of physics and geography, or the study of social aggregation on the other, renders enduring foundations possible.
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1 tortuous | |
adj.弯弯曲曲的,蜿蜒的 | |
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2 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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3 necessitates | |
使…成为必要,需要( necessitate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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4 interpretation | |
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理 | |
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5 psychology | |
n.心理,心理学,心理状态 | |
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6 physiology | |
n.生理学,生理机能 | |
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7 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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8 aggregations | |
n.聚集( aggregation的名词复数 );集成;集结;聚集体 | |
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9 aggregation | |
n.聚合,组合;凝聚 | |
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10 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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11 elucidation | |
n.说明,阐明 | |
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12 muddle | |
n.困惑,混浊状态;vt.使混乱,使糊涂,使惊呆;vi.胡乱应付,混乱 | |
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13 preposterous | |
adj.荒谬的,可笑的 | |
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14 geographical | |
adj.地理的;地区(性)的 | |
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15 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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16 conversion | |
n.转化,转换,转变 | |
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17 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
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18 valid | |
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的 | |
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19 administrator | |
n.经营管理者,行政官员 | |
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20 infertile | |
adj.不孕的;不肥沃的,贫瘠的 | |
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21 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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22 unlimited | |
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的 | |
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23 avaricious | |
adj.贪婪的,贪心的 | |
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24 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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25 partnerships | |
n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 );合伙人身份;合作关系 | |
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26 edifice | |
n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿,教室) | |
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27 jargon | |
n.术语,行话 | |
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28 professed | |
公开声称的,伪称的,已立誓信教的 | |
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29 presumptions | |
n.假定( presumption的名词复数 );认定;推定;放肆 | |
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30 rhetoric | |
n.修辞学,浮夸之言语 | |
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31 socialists | |
社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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32 underpinned | |
v.用砖石结构等从下面支撑(墙等)( underpin的过去式和过去分词 );加固(墙等)的基础;为(论据、主张等)打下基础;加强 | |
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33 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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34 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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35 exponents | |
n.倡导者( exponent的名词复数 );说明者;指数;能手 | |
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36 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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37 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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38 lore | |
n.传说;学问,经验,知识 | |
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