ABSTRACT
THERE are those whose attitude to classical Political Economy is contained in the statement that nothing is to be gained by examination of the elementary blunders of economists a century ago. In so extreme a form as this the attitude is probably rare. But there is a similar, if less impatient, opinion in general currency in academic circles which represents the classical economists as the crude, if brilliant, "primitives" of their art, from which our contemporary sophistication has no more than very minor lessons to learn.
