Henry Carey
One of the most highly regarded and best known economist of the early eighteen hundreds was Henry Carey. Of all the many American economists in the first half of the nineteenth century, the best known, especially outside of America, was Henry Carey. Being born in Philadelphia, Carey's views were that typically of an American. The manor, in which he opposed other economists and established his own theories, distinguished him as a prominent figure not only in his hometown of Philadelphia but in the entire United States. He rejected Malthus and Ricardo on several grounds and accused them of deviating from the views of Adam Smith. His belief in the revision of economic thought stemmed from the fact that early classical thinking, developed in Europe, was not suitable for a newly discovered country such as the United States which consisted of abundant land and scarce labour. These aspects will be viewed in detail while examining Carey's principle theories. However, before tackling the unprecedented theories of Carey, a description of the man's life and career, and writings should first be examined.He was born in 1793 in Philadelphia. He was the son of a self-m
Carey=s Four Major Theories and Views Henry Charles Carey had for the most part of his life good battles against several of the highest regarded individuals in the field of economics. He had undertaken great deal of study during his times of criticisms against namely that of Ricardo, Malthus, and Smith. The erroneous nature of his opposition lead to the questioning of the worthiness of Carey=s contributions to economic thought. As to the overall contributions to economic analysis made by Carey, much disagreement exists. To most economists, however, Carey=s service was rendered through his attacks on economic theory, especially the four previously mentioned ones. Nobly, he had succeeded in making new theories and proving them at most times. The end results of Carey's contributions were a deeper understanding of some of the basic theories in economics. Carey defined the meaning of an American through his beliefs in protectionism on a world level along with his belief of laisser faire system within the country along with his optimistic views that established Carey as one of the most highly regarded person of his times, something only that today's fellow American could even dream about, In his time he exercised great influence, though less so in his country than in America and on the Continent; for us, at least, he has now faded into comparative, insignificance, cursed by his own voluminousness and repetitiveness, and, it must be added by a rather naive foolishness(Gray, 249). Henry Carey had ideas that were not wholly unjust; he is, above all, the supreme example of the truth that the economist reflects his environment. Carey opposed the Malthusian Theory of population. Being of strict Catholic decent, his religious upbringing greatly influenced his outlook concerning the theory. Carey viewed the rapid growth of North American population from the same as Bastait, rather than that of Malthus. He opposed Malthus on several grounds. The first was because the Malthus theory was in contrast to God's intentions. Carey goes on to explain this by saying, Lastly, Carey argued the fact that of relationships between intellectual and reproducing functions of humans. He further looks at this by stating that the population growth tends to decrease as the rate of intelligence of human's increases. Unfortunately, Carey was unable to forward any proof of this argument but he may have well predicted the future as the advancement in human intelligence has lead to population anti-growth devices such as birth control. In his fourth argument, Carey contradicts the beliefs of how Malthus presumed that the population would increase in a geometric ratio alone. He based his understanding on the examples of a grain of corn and that of a pair of rabbits. In each case, both will multiply and produce literally thousands and thousands over a period of time. This then would be geometric also. However, according to Malthus only mankind will increase geometrically and other lower life forms will only produce in arithmetic numbers only. Simply by the use of the rabbit example we can see that the Malthus theory could not be totally correct.
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Approximate Word count = 3468
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)
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