The rapid success of the Political Economy showed that the public wanted, and were prepared for such a book. Published early in 1848, an edition of a thousand copies was sold in less than a year. Another similar edition was published in the spring of 1849; and a third, of 1250 copies, early in 1852. It was, from the first, continually cited and referred to as an authority, because it was not a book merely of abstract science, but also of application, and treated Political Economy not as a thing by itself, but as a fragment of a greater whole; a branch of Social Philosophy, so interlinked with all the other branches, that its conclusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from causes not directly within its scope: while to the character of a practical guide it has no pretension, apart from other classes of considerations. Political Economy, in truth, has never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights but its own; though people who knew nothing but political economy (and therefore knew that ill) have taken upon themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights as they had. But the numerous sentimental enemies of political economy, and its still more numerous interested enemies in sentimental guise, have been very successful in gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations against it, and the “Principles” having, in spite of the freedom of many of its opinions, become for the present the most popular treatise on the subject, has helped to disarm the enemies of so important a study. The amount of its worth as an exposition of the science, and the value of the different applications which it suggests, others of course must judge.
Note from KBJ: Mill was correct that economics is not a source of values. Economists, like philosophers, are technicians. Philosophers describe the costs of believing this or that proposition; economists describe the costs of choosing this or that bundle of goods. The philosopher's leverage is the law of noncontradiction. The economist's leverage is the law of supply and demand. Economics has been called (by Thomas Carlyle) "the dismal science," because it tells us what we can't have, given that we want other things. Philosophy is similarly dismal, since it tells us what we can't believe, given that we believe other things. When an economist or a philosopher makes an argument for an evaluative conclusion, he or she necessarily uses at least one evaluative premise. (This is known as Hume's Law.) This premise is not part of economics or philosophy; nor does the fact that the arguer is an economist or a philosopher given anyone else a reason to accept that premise. The values of an economist or a philosopher have no more weight than the values of any noneconomist or nonphilosopher. This does not mean that economists and philosophers do not claim authority for their values. They certainly do claim such authority. But they have none; they are trying to get their interlocutors to commit the fallacious appeal to authority.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 