William Senior Research Articles

Seeking the “Spirit of Capitalism”: The German Historical School and the Controversies about the Origins of Capitalism

ABSTRACT The question of the origins or genesis of capitalism preoccupied the writers of the so-called German Historical School and led to fierce disputes between them in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Its “background” was Marx's theory of capitalism and its genesis in Capital, against which the authors under consideration attempted to formulate an alternative historical analysis and theory. The leading figure of the school at the time, Werner Sombart, introduced the notion of the “spirit of capitalism” as an independent, decisive factor in the birth of the capitalist system, which pre-existed capitalism. The birth of capitalism took place, according to Sombart, when the activities of certain economic subjects who owned large amounts of money merged with the activities of other economic subjects already possessing a certain economic spirit, which proved to be pertinent to capitalism. The idea of a pre-existing “spirit” which enabled the genesis of capitalism was later adopted by Max Weber who radically modified Sombart's reasoning in a direction compatible with Nassau William Senior's theory of abstinence. Despite its poor documentation of historical facts and social theory, Weber's approach still fascinates certain social scientists, probably because it is being perceived as constituting an “anti-Marxist Manifesto.”

Nassau William Senior and the Poor Laws: Why Workhouses Improved the Industriousness of the Poor

The New Poor Law of 1834 was criticized for sending many poor to workhouses where conditions were designed to be harsh and degrading. N.W. Senior, one of the authors of the 1834 Poor Law Report, argued that the poor would become industrious if paid labour was clearly more attractive than the conditions of the workhouse. Senior argued that all people desire to better themselves, and they desire variety and distinction as their income rises. Although the poor lacked diligence and abstinence, entering paid employment would be a step towards their material and ethical improvement.

Trustworthiness as a Moral Determinant of Economic Activity: Lessons from the Classics

This paper reviews the way that social norms and ethical values in general, and trustworthiness in particular, is perceived to affect the behavior of economic agents in view of the work of Adam Smith, Nassau William Senior and John Stuart Mill. Classical Political economists held that economic actions are context-dependent and thus constantly under the influence of social norms and values. It is further suggested here that Classical Economists had established that trustworthiness acts as a general ethical precondition for the efficient behaviour of the markets and an important asset of the national social capital.

To be as a Looking Glass to their Estates: the early 17th century surveys of William Senior

William Senior, during the years 1600 to 1640, surveyed private estates totalling over 285000 acres located in a dozen counties of England. The result – written surveys (“terriers”) and over 150 maps (“platts”) – is a minor Domesday Book for the early 17th century.

To be as a Looking Glass to their Estates: the early 17th century surveys of William Senior

AbstractWilliam Senior, during the years 1600 to 1640, surveyed private estates totalling over 285000 acres located in a dozen counties of England. The result – written surveys (“terriers”) and over 150 maps (“platts”) – is a minor Domesday Book for the early 17th century.

Tocqueville and public choice

It is a remarkable fact that the first great exploration of mass democracy proceeded from a method so congenial to modern public choice. It is also a fact from which members of that school may take not only considerable satisfaction but valuable instruction as they seek to integrate their scholarly interests and impressive analytic skills with a compelling philosophical perspective. However profond his empirical work, Tocqueville's treatment of some topics is less thorough and rigorous than that found in selected contemporary studies. Economists, for example, would rightly observe that he, like Smith, lacked the formal proofs of welfare economics and the techniques of marginal analysis (even while his intuitions into those modern schemes are almost invariably correct, and he was entirely aware of most aspects of strategic behavior dealt with today in public choice). But when one considers the comprehensive nature of his descriptive/analytic work, revealing critical associations of beliefs, rules and incentives among all major social realms, it can be said confidently that his general equilibrium analysis, including the sources of instability he identified, remains unsurpassed in the tradition in which he wrote. Still, it would be wrong to read Tocqueville primarily for reasons of technical enlightenment. His relevance for public choice is much greater: in providing for that field both a trenchant framework of positive theory and an abiding philosophical justification, he offers a unified model in which the undertakings proposed by Buchanan are given concrete expression. This brief exegesis, of course, identifies only a few of the manifold subjects raised in Tocqueville's demiurgic treatise that are of interest to public choice; his work addresses many other issues of equal and pressing relevance, including a piercing analysis of democracy under the new system of property rights he realized would emerge with industrialization, a matter that deserves its own extended discussion. In the 1930s there was, upon its centenary, a resurgence of scholarly interest in Democracy and its prophecies, and there was some dispute as to whether Tocqueville's more somber warnings had been, or were about to be, realized. Fifty years of additional experience have not been altogether comforting. Is it not now the case that governmental size, concentration and power have grown beyond recognition; that every want has its power base and political voice; and that acquiescent and demagogic politicans seek, in the end unsucccessfully, to accommodate every voter, place-hunter, and political association? If so, we may still agree that the denouement is not yet. The plot must still be clarified. Tocqueville's rational-choice analytics point to the eventual collapse of democracy and its uneasy partner, liberty, as mobilized but insatiable populations grow weary and impatient with unappeased wants. Economic inefficiency, while important, is not the greatest cost imposed by such tendencies. Liberty itself would be lost, and with it the individual's opportunity to develop freely his character and virtue. One cannot discount the tone of doubt on this score that runs through Democracy, but there is an important counterpoint. Tocqueville neither mourned an aristocracy grown decadent nor feared the democratic future; rather, he cautioned that history was choice — he detested nothing more than the materialistic determinism fashionable among the Ideologues of his day. He therefore believed that democracy, while irresistible in its attraction, could possibly, by responsible choice, be channeled, disciplined and made compatible with liberty if enlightened self-interests should triumph over unenlightened ones. Tocqueville's own life was lived in harmony with just that principle, which gave to it a noble irony. Whatever other aspects of human nature he may have emphasized in his empirical work, he was himself a disinterested seeker after liberty and justice. No doubt it was to pay homage to such rare qualities that Nassau William Senior made his long and melancholy trek in 1859 to Tocqueville's grave, upon which he laid a wreath of immortelles.

German militarism and expansionism, 1914–1918: Gerhard Ritter and the First World War

With the publication of volumes III and IV the complete text of Gerhard Ritter's monumental study of the problem of militarism in modern Germany is now available in a reliable English language translation.* These last two volumes, like the two that preceded them,1 are models of historical scholarship. Written with remarkable care and sensitivity, both volumes combine the merits of monographic persistence with the virtues of a systematic synthesis of works already published on related themes or associated problems. While the first two volumes of Ritter's study cover a far greater period of time and development (1740-1914), these concluding volumes devote over a thousand pages to the final and most fateful period of civilian-military rivalry in Wilhelmian Germany. As in his other works, Ritter's immense erudition is ably served by a gracious and natural style of writing. Cogently and persuasively he leads his reader through the labyrinth of eventsoften depressing but usually fascinatingwhich ultimately led to the wartime dictatorship of the military. Having already noted in the later chapters of Volume II the growing political influence of Kaiser William II's senior military officials, Ritter goes on to describe in Volume III the tragic inability of William's senior civilian official, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg, to limit the impact of that influence upon the formulation of German wartime policy. In Volume IV he examines the consequences of that failure, *Gerhard Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter. The Problem of Militarism in Germany. Volume III: The Tragedy of StatesmanshipBethmann Hollweg as War Chancellor (1914-1917). Translated by Heinz Norden. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1972. Pp. vii, 611. $18.00.

William Senior (1862–1937), Legal Historian

Upon receiving from Clare College, Cambridge, a William Senior scholarship to continue my studies in legal history, I enquired about the man whose generosity was being extended to me. No one knew anything about him. Therefore, I collected the information for this short piece as much out of curiosity as piety. Having done so, I discovered a legal historian and scholar of moderate proportions who does not deserve such complete neglect. Had he been a teacher or a politician, my efforts might have been rewarded by the discovery of more personal information about the man himself. As it is, very little beyond his vital statistics is known, and so we must concentrate upon his scholarly remains. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to rescue from oblivion the scholarship of William Senior for the benefit of modern legal historians and to further publicize the existence of this fund of money which he bequeathed for the encouragement of the study of legal history. William Senior was born in 1862 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Senior, a solicitor who practiced in Wakefield and Bradford.' He was admitted to Clare College, Cambridge, in 1879 and took his B.A. from the university three years later. In 1886 he was admitted to the Law Society as a solicitor. From 1888 to 1890 he practiced law alone in his native Wakefield, and for the next following five years he pursued his profession in partnership with his father and their next-door neighbor, Percival Barratt.2 In 1891 Senior published his first work: Tutor and Pupils: talks about twelve law maxims.3 However, he never restricted his interests to the field of law, and during the year 1893, at least, he was a member of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.4 In the

An Outline of the Science of Political Economy. Nassau William Senior

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsAn Outline of the Science of Political Economy. Nassau William Senior V. W. BladenV. W. Bladen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 48, Number 3Jun., 1940 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/255571 Views: 5Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:Three Studies on the National Income. Iron and Steel. U.S. Tariff Commission, Report/No. 128, Second Series International Economics. By P. T. Ellsworth Soils and Men. Year Book of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1938 Agricultural Statistics, 1938. United States Department of Agriculture On Agricultural Policy, 1926–1938. Joseph S. DavisProceedings of the Fifth International Conference of Agricultural Economists. Rural Australia and New Zealand. By Edmund de S. Brunner The World Coal Mining Industry. Technical Progress and Unemployment. By Emil Lederer Economics: A General Textbook for Students. By Frederic Benham Economics of Transportation. By D. Philip Locklin Nationale Verkehrsplanung (National Traffic‐Planning). By Sven Helander The Finance of British Government, 1920–1936. By Ursula K. Hicks State Interference in South Africa. By F. J. van Biljon. The Public Finance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. By Paul Rechtsstaat und “Wirtschaftslenkung.” By Dr. Fritz Haussmann Konzerne und Kartelle im Zeichen der “Wirtschaftslenkung.” By Dr. Fritz Haussmarm Economic Problems of the Next War. Paul EinzigVALUABLE REPRINTS OP WORKS IN ECONOMICS The Literature of Political Economy. By J. R. McCulloch An Outline of the Science of Political Economy. By Nassau William Senior An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, by Henry Thornton. Edited by F. A. von Hayek Earning and Spending. By W. A. Morris Research and Statistical Methodology Books and Reviews of 1933‐38. Edited by O. K. Buros Searchlight on Social Credit. By W. R. Hiskett and J. R. Franklin Cause and Control of the Business Cycle. By E. C. Harwood France Faces Depopulation. By Joseph J. Spengler. Trade Associations in Law and Business. By Benjamin S. Kirsch The I.L.O. Year Book, 1937‐38. (International Labour Office.) The Theory of Prices. A Re‐Examination of the Central Problems of Mònetary Theory. Volume I. By Arthur W. Marget National Bank Failures and Non‐Failures. By Horace Secrist

Thornton abbey: Peter della Vigna

Thornton abbey: Peter della Vigna Get access William Senior William Senior Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume 158, Issue 26, 28 June 1930, Page 460, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/158.26.460b Published: 28 June 1930

Naval History in the Law Courts. A Selection of Old Maritime Cases. By William Senior. (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1927. pp. x, 114. Index. $2.50.)

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