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A study of the changes of economic thought and policy in the late Scottish Enlightenment

Research Project

Project/Area Number 09630013
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Section一般
Research Field 経済理論
Research InstitutionKYUSHU UNIVERSITY

Principal Investigator

SEKI Gentaro  Faculty of Economics, Kyushu University, Prof., 大学院・経済学研究院, 教授 (60117140)

Project Period (FY) 1997 – 2000
Project Status Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
Budget Amount *help
¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Keywordsthe Scottish Enlightenment / Industrialization / Urbanization / Sir John Sinclair / Thomas Chalmers / the poor / Glasgow / the late 18th to the early 19th Century / 経済発展 / 経済主体の形成 / 貧民対策 / アダム・スミス / ドゥゴルド・ステュアート / トマス・チヤーマーズ / 工業化・都市化 / 救貧法 / コミュニティ / インダストリ / 生活習慣 / スコットランド啓豪 / 経済改良 / 経済思想 / 経済政策思想 / ドゥカルド・ステュアート / ジョン・シンクレア- / ドュガルド・ステュアート
Research Abstract

Scotland was dramatically industrialized and urbanized from the late 18th to 19th century. This means that a problem of the poor took place in the expanding cities. The Scottish intellectual actives, which had been blooming as the Scottish Enlightenment during the latter of the 18th century, were forced to tackle this problem. This study is concerned with how Sir John Sinclair and Thomas Chalmers coped with the problem, and will make clear their historical significance. Sinclair advocated his own 'statistics' by which he meant an inquiry into the habitants' conditions of a country and the means of their 'future improvement' by investing and analyzing their factual conditions. In fact on such statistical data as The Statistical Account of Scotland edited by himself and so on he insisted that the problem was responsible for the dissolution of a small community, the urbanization caused by the rapid industrialization, and the urban population's loss of prudence and frugality brought about … More by the urban circumstances. However, the measures that he proposed were not the reconstruction of a small community but the improvement of the urban population's manners and independence through providing an education for them, encouraging them to join a friendly society. After graduation from the University of St Andrews Chalmers wished to continue his scholarly work but at a moment begun to become conspicuous as an Evangelical minister in a country parish, while he evaluated more Malthus's economics than Smith's, and pointed out the importance of the natural check on economic activities. He thought that this natural check was the final cause for the poverty problem, and argued that in order to solve the problem there was no way without keeping population within the limitation of food production by laborers' birth-control, which would be, he thought, possible because their innate 'prudence and principle from within' could have restrained a childbirth. Based on this theory as well as his experience as an Evangelical minister in a country parish he made 'an experiment' in a new parish of a large city, Glasgow. Both Sinclair and Chalmers, though they were theoretically deferent from each other, were looking for the way of the shaping of adequate actors in the industrialized and urbanized society. This seems to be their historical significance. Less

Report

(5 results)
  • 2001 Final Research Report Summary
  • 2000 Annual Research Report
  • 1999 Annual Research Report
  • 1998 Annual Research Report
  • 1997 Annual Research Report

URL: 

Published: 1997-04-01   Modified: 2016-04-21  

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