The Ethics of Political Economy: Pigou in the Public Sphere

Abstract

The career of Arthur Cecil Pigou was marked by a clearly articulated project of public economic enlightenment initiated in 1903 and sustained into the mid-1950s. We argue as follows: Pigou held that in the British polity of his time, citizens were indirectly but ultimately responsible for economic policy. However, he was convinced that the British public was woefully ignorant of economic affairs and incapable of understanding elementary economic reasoning without expert advice. He placed the responsibility for enlightening the public on how to understand and assess economic policy on the economics profession, an obligation on which he acted in various essays, lectures, and letters to The Times intended for the “general body of the public.”

Keywords

• Pigou (Arthur C.)
• labor market
• Chamberlain (Joseph)
• wage-price spiral
• World War II