Alfred Marshall’s household economics: the role of the family in cultivating an ethical capitalism

Abstract

Marshall’s economics of the family has received little attention, yet it promises to provide a new perspective on his account of the relationship between economics and ethics. Two uses of the term ‘ethics’ are found in Marshall’s household economics. The first assigns the term to altruistic preference for the well-being of other family members, and this is associated with a ‘descriptive’ economics, broadened to include preferences that are both self-interested and ethical. The second use of ethics, however, is identified with a concept of social or collective good as an index of ‘higher faculties’. This second notion, which reflects the continued influence of a youthful interest in Hegel’s Philosophy of History, is associated with an evaluative economics. It involves ascribing to families the moral role of cultivating labour productivity in view of more widespread faculty development. To this ideal Marshall ascribes a substantive content, which permits him to assess empirical patterns of family formation, resource production, educational investment and bequest. The explanation of how Marshall’s social ethics informs his economic evaluations constitutes a departure from the standard interpretation of Marshall’s economics as pre-ethical or agnostic about the ethical value of preferences.