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Art. I - Essay on Political Economy. Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. VI. Part I. Edinburgh. 1823. [From:]

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First edition. A review by Thomas Malthus of John Ramsay McCulloch’s famous essay on political economy.

In 1822 McCulloch was invited to write the first considerable article on political economy to appear in the supplement to the fourth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (1823). The result established David Ricardo’s system as epitomising ‘the true and correct principles of political economy’ and was later expanded into a popular textbook entitled Principles of political economy, with a sketch of the rise and progress of the science (1825), which went through five editions. Ricardo considered McCulloch’s essay ‘a valuable historical sketch’ and ‘so clear an exposition of all the important principles of the science that you have left nothing for me to wish for’, but Malthus’s Quarterly Review article was more critical.

While conceding that much of McCulloch’s article was ‘ably accomplished’, Malthus states that the author had ‘fallen into some most important errors’ which required pointing out. Malthus considered Ricardo, McCulloch, and James Mill to be representatives of a ‘new school of political economy’ which had departed from the school represented by Adam Smith and himself. Malthus’s 38 page review gives ‘an excellent and readable résumé of Malthus’s own position as an economist; according to Empson (Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXIV, p. 496) Malthus himself considered this article ‘one of the best things which he had ever done in Political Economy’’ (P. James, Population Malthus p. 487).

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