The Hundredth Anniversary of Clay’s Economics: The Best Introduction to Economics Ever Written

Clay’s Economics was first published in 1916 with no pretensions to be anything more than just a summary of the state of economic theory as it then was. Yet so well was it written that it became one of the most widely used economics texts of its time, found on reading lists from workers’ colleges and mechanic’s institutes through to the leading universities of the world. Its interest today is therefore twofold. It is, firstly, a near-perfect summary of pre-Keynesian economic theory, incorporating Say’s Law, J.S. Mill’s theory of value and the classical theory of the cycle, along with many other of the most important features of the standard classical model. Secondly, the text makes clear how wrong Keynes in The General Theory had been in his description of what the economists he had described as “classical” had actually believed and taught. Even a century later, Clay’s Economics may well remain the single best introduction to economic theory ever written.