Dissent

While the tenets of Classical Economics were largely accepted as a matter of course by the established classes in Britain, then in its heyday, they were by no means universally welcomed. During the nineteenth century, they received three serious challenges. One, mostly from Germany, but also from the United States, came from a group of writers and thinkers led by the German historicist school. The second came from the radical left. The third, towards the end of the century, came from the new marginalist school, of whom more in the next chapter. This chapter is concerned with the first two, and especially with the writings of Karl Marx and his many associates. We need to begin with the earlier challenges from German and American thinkers, however, whose views were generally less opposed to liberal capitalism as such than those of the socialist school, and more concerned with how to allow industrialisation and economic expansion to take place successfully in countries which did not, at the time, have the dominance which Britain possessed.