The place of education in W. S. Jevons's political economy

Abstract

The paper begins with the question of what became, in Jevons's new economics, of the imperative in classical political economy to educate the masses. Much of the core of classical thought, including the Malthusian principle and the wages-fund theory, together with Mill's new arguments about market failure, rationalized the need for state-supported general education as a benefit to both the labouring classes and society at large. Jevons's strong claim that Ricardo-Mill economics must be abandoned would seem to leave education policy without a strong mooring. However, he re-anchored it in his productivity approach to wage theory, his utility maximization approach to value theory and public works spending, and his empirical analyses of business cycles, the potential of long-term austerity, and poor consumption-saving behaviour of the working classes. The end result was similar to that of classical political economy, a multi-dimensional rationale for a policy of State-supported general education.