Dismal Science

The dismal science is a derogatory alternative name for economics devised by the Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century. The term is an inversion of the phrase "gay science," meaning "life-enhancing knowledge." This was a familiar expression at the time, and was later adopted as the title of a book by Nietzsche (see The Gay Science).

It is often stated that Carlyle gave economics the nickname "dismal science" as a response to the late 18th century writings of The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, who grimly predicted that starvation would result as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply. Carlyle did indeed use the word 'dismal' in relation to Malthus' theory in his essay "Chartism" (1839):

However the full phrase "dismal science" first occurs in Carlyle's 1849 tract entitled "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", in which he was arguing for the reintroduction of slavery as a means to regulate the labor market in the West Indies:

Developing a deliberately paradoxical position, Carlyle argued that slavery was actually morally superior to the market forces of supply and demand promoted by economists, since, in his view, the freeing up of the labor market by the liberation of slaves had actually led to a moral and economic decline in the lives of the former slaves themselves.

Carlyle's view was attacked by John Stuart Mill and other liberal economists.

The teachings of Malthus eventually became known under the umbrella phrase "Malthus' Dismal Theorem". His predictions were forestalled by unanticipated dramatic improvements in the efficiency of food production in the 20th century during the Green Revolution; yet the bleak end he proposed remains as a disputed future possibility. Population control has been proposed as the most likely means to prevent the fulfillment of his predictions, assuming human innovation fails to keep up with population growth.

See also

*An Essay on the Principle of Population
*Malthusian growth model - the math behind the theory
*Malthusianism - political (and economic) fall-out from the theory

External links

* [http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/LevyPeartdismal.html "The Secret History of the Dismal Science"] , by David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart.
* [http://www.economics.unimelb.edu.au/TLdevelopment/econochat/Dixonecon00.html "The Origin of the Term "Dismal Science" to Describe Economics"] , by Robert Dixon
* [http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/texts/carlyle/carlodnq.htm "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question" ] , by Thomas Carlyle