The Economics of the Industrial Revolution

The social sciences have utterly failed in the task of rendering social conditions more satisfactory. The economic policies of the last decades have been the outcome of a mentality that scoffs at any variety of sound economic theory and glorify s spurious doctrines, he says. Quacks praising their patent medicines and short cuts to the earthly paradise, take pleasure in scorning economics, as orthodox and reactionary demagogues pride themselves on what they call their victories over economics. What is wrong with our age is precisely the widespread ignorance of the role which these policies of economic freedom played in the technical evolution of the last 200 years. It can certainly not be blamed for the destiny of modern civilization, but it must be emphasized by