Economic Signific of Culture

Economic History Association
On the Economic Significance of Culture Author(s): Harold A. Innis Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 4, Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History (Dec., 1944), pp. 80-97 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2113261 . Accessed: 09/07/2013 15:41
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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
of Culture Significunce OntheEconomic

I
EDWIN F. GAY, my predecessor, in the inauguralpresidentialaddress

of this Associationdescribedthe continuityof the history of economic history from Europeto North Americaas illustratedin his own work. As your secondpresidentI representa later stage of this continuity,a student of ChesterW. Wrightwho in turn was a student of Edwin Gay. I am in a sense one of Edwin Gay'sgrandsons. This, particularlyas it appealsto my strongScottishinterestin genealogy,providesthe only satisfactoryexplanation I havebeenable to findof the honoryou have doneme in appointingme his successor. For the samereasonit is a sourceof satisfactionto me that my successorcan be said to fill the interveninggap as one of Edwin Gay'ssons. In calling his paper"The Tasks of EconomicHistory"Edwin Gay compels me to continuehis analysis by discussingthe limitations of economic historyor of the social sciencesor morespecificallyof the framework of the pricesystem. In pointingto tasks or what may be done,he has left the question of their boundariesor what cannot be done. In attempting to answer this questionperhapswe can improveourperspectiveregarding the place of the field of economichistory and in turn of the social sciences in Western civilization.We need a sociologyor a philosophyof the social sciencesand of economics,an economichistoryof knowledge or an economic particularly historyof economichistory.Economichistorymay enableus to understand the backgroundof economic thought or of the organizationof economic thoughtor of thoughtin the social sciences.The influenceof the Greekson philosophyand in turn on universitiescompelsus to raise questionsabout the limitationsof the social sciences. We must somehowovercomewhat Leslie Stephencalls the "weaknessfor omnisciencewhich infects most historicalcritics."' TheWalrus andtheCarpenter closeat hand: Werewalking to see Theyweptlikeanything of sand: Suchquantities "If thiswereonlycleared away," Theysaid,"it wouldbe grand."
'History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1876), x, 438.
8o
On the Economic Significanceof Culture

"If sevenmaidswithsevenmops Sweptit forhalf a year, said, theWalrus Do yousuppose," "Thattheycouldget it clear?" "I doubtit,"saidthe Carpenter, Andsheda bittertear.
8i
Economicsimplies the applicationof scarce means to given ends, and the compelsa similarstrategyof approach. vast rangeof social phenomena Within the broadsubjectof the social scienceswe can see clearly the use of obvious strategies.The impact of the naturalsciences and machineinwhichare dustryhas been evidentin the emphasison pecuniaryphenomena particularlysuited to mathematicsand mechanicaldevicesdevelopedin reAs slot machineshave been built up aroundthe sizes lation to mathematics. of coins so therehas been a tendency and weightsof variousdenominations for economicsto be built up aroundthe monetarystructure.Walter Leaf wroteof threemain causes disposingmen to madness-love, ambition,and with the last namedas the worst.Bamberger the study of currency problems, wrote that peoplego mad becauseof love and bimetallism.Sorokinhas describedthe importanceof the quantitativeapproachin modernsociety, fittingly enoughin four largevolumes,and has deploredthe emphasison economic questionsas peculiarto the approach. all findtheirlevel price, Left to themselves
Potatoes, verses, turnips, Greek, and rice....2
of the slant of economicsis as evidentin Veblen'selaboration The pecuniary pecuniaryeconomy of North America as in the discussion by monetary I needhardlyreferto the workof the comtheoristsof liquiditypreference. mittee on price studies and the importantcontributionsof those working under its directions,mentioningonly the studies of Bezanson, Cole, and Hamilton. interestin pricesreflectedin economicsand in economic The widespread historyhas effectivelybroadenedthe approachto history and correctedthe bias which emphasizedmilitary exploits or political activities.3The state and other organizationsof centralizedpower have had a vital interest in
2 Cited in A. S. Collins, The Profession of Letters: A Study of the Relation of Author to (London: G. Routledge and Sons, 1928), p. I20. Patron, Publisher, and Public, 1780-1832 3 See H. A. Innis, "The Penetrative Powers of the Price System," The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, IV (I938), 299-3 I9.
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HaroldA. Innis
recordsof their activities and have given powerfuldirectionto the study of political, legal, constitutional,and ecclesiasticalhistory. The mechanicsof archivalorganization have given enormous impetusto the writingof history from the standpointof centralizedpower. Administrativemachineryand preservation of recordshave impressedon historicalwritingthe imprintof the state and fosteredthe bias whichmadehistory the handmaidof politics. In the eighteenthcentury rigid censorshipfosteredevasionsin the form of historieswrittenas political weapons.An interestin history is still fostered the churchor the state, and the demandsof paras a meansof strengthening ticulargroupsare reflectedeven in economichistory.The honorificposition of military, legal, and ecclesiasticalgroups is evident in the history textbook, a form of historicalwriting which is extremelysensitive to political demandsand to nationalisticinterests. Scholarshipis harassedby the demandsof pressuregroups.Even thoughpricehistoryhas a bias of its own,it can checktendenciesfavorableto powergroups.Economichistorycan point to the dangersof bias and the necessityfor a broader perspective. On the other hand, the pecuniaryapproach,when all pervasive,tends to obscurethe significanceof technologyand workmanship. It has threatened to makeeconomicsa branchof higheraccountancy. in measuring to findmentalsatisfaction The modern tendency everything by a andthe way it takesforgranted thateverything fixedrational standard, canbe receives fromtheapparently relatedto everything else,certainly objective value of exchange of money,andthe universal whichthisinvolves, a strong possibility psychological impulseto becomea fixedhabit of thought,whereasthe purely is not subjectto these logicalprocess itself,whenit onlyfollowsits owncourse, ideasintomereprobabilities.' influences, andit thenturnstheseaccepted Concentrationon the price system, driven by mathematics, involves conditionsunderwhichpricesoperate.The use neglectof the technological
'Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachingof the ChristianChurches(London: George Allen and Unwin, I93I), I, 408. For a suggestive account of the far-reaching implications of objectivity reflected by the mathematics of the price system, see the description of baseball in Victor 0. Jones, "Box Score!" Newsmen's Holiday (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp. i62-82: "The one thing which distinguishes baseball from all other sports and which has been the main reason for 'organized baseball's' hold upon the public is its development of a statistical side" (pp. i65-66). For a discussion of the importance of statistics in political propaganda see F. C. Bartlett, Political Propaganda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), pp. 93-4. "When a statement is 'quantified' it seems to convey to the majority of persons a superior certainty, and it passes without question."-Ibid., p. 94. The Gallup Poll has possibly made politics more absorbing. But statistics has been particularly dangerous to modern society by strengthening the cult of economics and weakening other social sciences and the humanities.
83
of liquidity preferenceas a concept in the study of economichistory emphasizesshort-run points of view acceptableto the pricesystem ratherthan long-run points of view whichnecessitateperspective. An equilibrium of approachesto the study of economicphenomena becomesexceedinglydifficult to achievewith the insistenceon short-runinterestsand the obsessionwith the present.Thereis in the social sciencesa liquiditypreferencefor theories concerned with the presentwhichis moredangerous in its implicationsthan liquidity preference is to monetarystability. Marx and his followerssharpened awarenessof pressuregroups and emphasizedthe importanceof the study of technologyand the meansof production. While Schumpeter has attempted to bridge the pecuniaryand the technologicalapproachesand to avoid the dangerof concentrating on the price system and the profitmotive on and technology,his effortshave meant the sacrificeof too much in both approaches and particularlyin the technological. Moreoverhe deliberately neglectsthe importantworkof politicalhistorians.The late N. J. Silberling madea moresuccessfulattempt to co-ordinatethe political,pecuniary,and technological approaches but his work was limited by nationalboundaries. In part, the weaknessof the technological approachhas been a resultof the restrictedknowledgeof technicaldevelopment. The workof Nef on coal, of Usher on mechanicalinventions,and of a large numberof students in the fieldmustbe supplemented extensively.Suchworkmustemphasizenot only technicalchangesbut their significanceto economicand political institutions.The interestin legislation,courtdecisions,andlegal systemsshownby Commonsshould be integratedwith the work of the historian of prices, Sir Henry SumnerMaine made a commentof technology,and government. profoundsignificancewhen he pointed to the interrelationof legislation, bias. prices,and technologyand the mathematical Experience showsthat innovating is connected not so muchwith legislation Scienceas with the scientificair whichcertainsubjects,not capableof exact fromtimeto timeassume. scientific To thisclassof subjects treatment, belonged scheme Bentham's of Law-Reform, above Political all, as treated Economy and, Both Ricardo. have been fertile sources of by extremely legislation duringthe last fifty years.5 The vast rangeof studies of businesscycles and their significanceto unemploymentwouldgain perceptiblyby the integrationof basic approaches. The conflictbetweentechnologyand the price system describedby Veblen
'Popular Government (London, i885), p. I46.
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Harold A. Innis
in The Engineerand the Price System,in which the restrictionson technology have been of primary concern, can be resolved more easily with a broaderperspective.A broadersynthesiswouldenableus to counteractthe regression in thoughtshownby Schumpeter and Polanyiwho regardmonopoly as a means of resisting the effects of obsessionwith the short run. In technologyas in the price system, advancehas been supportedby mathematics,but the effectiveness of the applicationof mathematics varies in the two fieldsandmay makefor divergence in the study ratherthanconvergence of economicphenomena as a whole. Since therehas been a very perceptible lag in the spreadof mathematicsin relationto the price system, engineers and scientists such as Douglas and Soddy, social-credittheorists, technocrats, and others have taken advantageof the gap. But it is possible that Godis not a mathematician as some philosophers wouldhave us believe. The intensive demandsof technologyon students in the social sciences have contributed to the narrowness of its approach andsuch narrowness has been intensifiedby the emphasisthat political and military history put on nationalism. The important contributions of geography have been restrictedto studiesof localizationsuchas thoseof AlfredWeberandof Usher. The significance of basic geographicfeatureshas been suggestedby Mahan from the standpointof the sea and by Mackinderfrom the standpointof continentalland massesbut they have not been incorporated effectivelyin economichistory.Nor do we have an effectivestudy of air. In a generalway we are familiarwith the influenceof the sea on the developmentof democraticinstitutionsin Greeceand of the land on the centralizingtendenciesof Rome. Althoughwe can trace the influenceof Roman institutions in the codifiedlaw of Europeand in the RomanCatholicChurchas adaptedto a continent,and can see the growth of parliamentaryinstitutions and Protestantismin the Anglo-Saxon worldin relationto the demandsof the sea, it may be doubtedwhetherwe appreciatetheir significanceto economichistory. But the effectsof geographymay be offset by technologyin that the of defensivetactics led to the growthof feudalismand the use development of gunpowder broughta returnto efficientoffensivetacticsand to increasing in the Westernworld.Geography centralization providesthe grooveswhich determinethe courseand to a large extent the characterof economiclife. Population,in termsof numbersand quality,and technologyare largelydeterminedby geographic and politicalinstitutionshave been to background, an importantextent shapedthroughwarsin relationto this background.
85
II has been effectivein determiningthe groovesof economiclife Geography throughits effectson transportation and communication. The lowercosts of tonnageby sea than by land strengthenedthe position of Great Britain in the developmentof trade in more bulky commoditiessuited to industrial growthandexpansion.France,Spain,and Portugalwith a continentalbackgrounddevelopedconnectionswith the continentalhinterlandsof the New World.As the late Max Handmann suggested,the Anglo-Dutchtradingsystemsexpandedin relationto the sea, continentalfeudalismin relationto the land. The expansionof GreatBritainwas in termsof the migrationof Englishmen and the development of industries, either, as in the northern colonies,by using Englishlaborin the productionof bulky commoditiesor, in the tropicalregions,by organizing importedlaboron a largescale for the production of sugarand cotton. Spanishfeudalismand militarismexploited native labor primarilyfor preciousmetals, and French feudalismfor furs. British expansionlinked trade with naval strength and limited financial burdens,whereasFrenchexpansionmeant tradeand military strengthand enormousdemandson financefor the constructionof forts and the maintenance of garrisonsand bureaucracies.But British maritime expansion meantparliamentary institutionsand decentralization characteristic of the Anglo-Saxonworld. Federalismbecame an importantfeature. In Canada feudalismcontinuedin the ownership of naturalresourcesby the provinces and producedthe dualmixtureof a capitalisticfederalgovernment feuandc dalistic provincialgovernments. The advantagesto Great Britain of maritime expansionand of access, with low costs of navigation,to cheapsuppliesof bulky goods were accompaniedby the developmentof coal miningand industry.Coalbeganto pull rawmaterialsfromthe fringesof the Atlanticbasin and beyond,and to provide the powerfor conversionof the rawmaterialsinto finishedproductsfor export.The effectivenessof the pull began to vary with distances,and distances changedwith improvementsin manufacturingand particularlyin Timber and cotton from the northernand southernparts transportation. of North Americacould be transportedto Great Britain, and penetration to the interiorwith canals and railwaysbroughtsteadily expandingtrade first in wheat and then in the productsof animal husbandry.Successive to the loweringof costs of navigationacross wavesof commodities responded the Atlantic and of transportationto the interior. As wheat production
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Harold A. Innis
movedto the interior,olderareasbecameconcerned with the productionof other commodities.Englandshifted her fields from arableland to pasture. In these broadtrendswe see the basis of the stages outlinedby Grasand his students in the descriptionof the growthof the metropolitaneconomy.In the generalmigrationand shift in productionof raw materialsand, in turn, of semifinished and finishedproducts,we can see the problemsthat the late FrederickTurner describedin his work on the frontiers.Disturbancesto these more or less regulartrendswere a result of sudden developmentsin which costs werelowered,of geographicfactorssuch as access to the great plains and obstructionby mountains,of cyclonic activatessuch as accompaniedthe gold rushesaroundthe fringesof the Pacific,and of the development of new sourcesof powerin the openingup of the coal regionsof North America. The emergenceof a complex industrialand trading structurecentering about the coal areas of the Anglo-Saxon world assumednot only improvein ments transportationbut also in communication.Correspondence between individualsand firms with slow navigation,on which Heaton has thrownmuch light, was inadequateto meet the demandsof large-scaleindustryand large-scaleconsumption. The rapidand extensivedissemination of informationwas essential to the effective placing of labor, capital, raw materials,and finishedproducts.OscarWilde wrote that "privateinformation is practicallythe source of every large modernfortune,"'and the demandfor privateinformation hastenedthe development of communications. The applicationof steam powerto the productionof paperand, in turn, of the newspaper,followed by the telegraph,and the exploitationof human curiosityand its interestin news by advertisersanxiousto disposeof their productscreatedefficientchannelsfor the spreadof information. The state, acting throughsubsidies,the post office,libraries,and compulsoryeducation, widenedthe areasto whichinformationcould be disseminated. Democratic forms of governmentprovidednews and subsidies for the transmission of news.As Carlylewrote,"He whofirstshortenedthe laborof copyists by deviceof movabletypes was disbanding hiredarmiesandcashiering most kings and senates, and creatinga whole new democraticworld: he had invented the art of printing."' With the rise of a vast area of public opinion,which was essential to the rapid disseminationof information,and the growth in turn of marketing the expansionof credit,and the development organizations, of nationalism,
6An Ideal Husband, Act II. 'Sartor Resartus (London, n. d.), p.
I28.
On theEconomic Significance of Culture
87
the vast structure previously centering about religion declined. Eric Gill wrote, "Where religion is strong, commerce is weak," but religion played an important role in the growth of commerce. The significance of religion to civilization has been described by Max Weber, Tawney, Toynbee, and others. Centralized religious institutions checked fanaticism but their limitations were evident in the emergence of dissent. Leslie Stephen wrote that "the full bitterness which the human heart is capable of feeling, the full ferocity which it is capable of expressing is to be met nowhere but in religious papers." Adam Smith in his comments on religious instruction noted the handicaps of the established church in England. The clergy had .... many of them become very learned, ingenious, and respectable men; but they have in general ceased to be very popularpreachers.The methodists,without half the learning of the dissenters,are much more in vogue. In the churchof Rome, the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive, many of them, a very considerablepart of their subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people; a source of revenue which confession gives them many opportunities of improving.The mendicant orders derive their whole subsistence from such oblations. It is with them, as with the hussars and light infantry of some armies; no plunder, no pay.8 The restraining influence of religious institutions has limitations, and dissenting groups and philosophical systems emerge on their fringes. Centralization is followed by decentralization. The printing press and commerce implied far-reaching changes in the role of religion. In Victor Hugo's famous chapter in the Notre Dame de Paris entitled "This Has Killed That," he writes: "During the first six thousand years of the world .... architecture was the great handwriting of the human race." Geoffrey Scott has described the effects of printing: Three influences, in combination, turned Renaissance architecture to an academic art. They were the revival of scholarship, the invention of printing, the discovery of Vitruvius. Scholarship set up the ideal of an exact and textual subservienceto the antique; Vitruviusprovided the code; printing disseminated it. It is difficult to do justice to the force which this implied. The effective influence of literature depends on its prestige and its accessibility. The sparse and jealously guarded manuscriptsof earlier days gave literature an almost magical prestige, but affordedno accessibility; the cheap diffusionof the printing press has made it accessible, but stripped it of its prestige. The interval between these two periods was literature'sunprecedentedand unrepeatedopportunity. In this
8'Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, I937), pp. 791-92.
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Harold A. Innis
interval Vitruvius came to light, and by this opportunityhe, more perhaps than any other writer, has been the gainer. His treatise was discoveredin the earlier part of the fifteenth century, at St. Gall; the first presses in Italy were established in I464; and within a few years (the first edition is undated) the text of Vitruvius was printed in Rome. Twelve separate editions of it were published within a century; seven translations into Italian, and others into French and German.Alberti founded his great work upon it, and its influencereached England by I563 in the brief essay of John Shute. Through the pages of Serlio, Vitruvius subjugated France, till then abandoned to the trifling classicism of FrangoisI.; through those of Palladio he became supremein England.9 The book destroyed the edifice, and in the religious wars and the French Revolution it destroyed social institutions as well. Brooks Adams wrote: That ancient channel [the church] once closed, Protestantshad to open another, and this led to deification of the Bible, .... Thus for the innumerablecostly fetishes of the imaginative age were substituted certain writings which could be consulted without a fee. The expedient was evidently the device of a mercantile community.'0 Leslie Stephen in a letter to Charles Adams wrote: I always fancy that if one could get to the truth, the Puritan belief in the supernatural was a good deal feebler than Carlyle represents. The man-of-business side of them checked the fanatic, and the ironsides beat the cavaliers as much because they appreciated good business qualities, as because they were "Godfearing"people." "'We that look to Zion,' wrote a gallant Anabaptist admiral of the age, 'should hold Christian communion. We have all the guns aboard." It is scarcely necessary to elaborate on the significance to the economic development of European civilization of the emphasis which Calvinism put on the individual. This significance was reinforced by the adaptability of the alphabet to the printing press, private enterprise, and the machine, and by the consequent spread of literacy, trade, and industrialism. The Chinese were handicapped by a language ill adapted to the printing press except through support of the state, and there was consequently no expansion of commerce adequate to defeat the demands of religion. We are told of the
'Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1924), pp. I94-95. 10 The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History (London: S. Sonnenschein and Company, I895), pp. 150-5I. ' F. W. Maitland, Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen (London: Duckworth and Company, 19o6), pp. 448-49. ' John Morley, Oliver Cromwell (London: Macmillan and Company, I919), p. 478.
On the EconomicSignificanceof Culture
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devils and gods in contrastwith handicapsof a religionwith innumerable the efficiencyof Christianitywhich reducedtheir numbersand enhanced economicefficiency.On the other hand, Burckhardthas describedthe tyrestablished a hieranny of religions which emphasizedotherworldliness, archy to guard the entranceto other worlds, and participatedin the most bitter warfare.Morley wrote of "the most frightfulidea that has ever corand of its deadening rodedhumannature-the idea of eternalpunishment" effects on the interest in social reform.The terrifying threats of a single organizationwhich inspiredLord Acton to write that "all power corrupts and absolutepowercorruptsabsolutely"were evadedby the printingpress and commerce. Religionhas beenvitally relatedto the mysteriesof life and deathand to the family.The declineof the Churchin Europereflectedthe impactof birth control on the confessional.The importanceof the biologicalbackground stressed by Knight in his discussionof the sociologicalsignificanceof the based family was evidentin feudalsocieties with or withoutprimogeniture on land and militarypower.Religioussects have fosteredthe accumulation of families.Whereasthe Church of wealthoverlongperiodsby intermarriage in its fight for sacerdotalcelibacyas a meansof preventingthe dispersionof wealth left itself open to the looting of its monasteries,the Jews and other becauseof the buildingup of largefortunes.One sects have beenpersecuted needs only to point to the studies of the Jews in relationto trade and economic developmentand to the peculiaritiesof economic organizationin various sects, for example the interest of the Quakersin developinginbeverages,to appreciatetheir significance. dustriesaroundnonintoxicating of the economicsof death and bequest no clear understanding We have (with apologiesto Wedgwood)in relation to the redistributionof wealth amonggroupsandsects. In the United States the importanceof religionto the growthof trade is periodicalsand theirpromisshownin the largenumbersof denominational amongthe first in a nationalmarket.Significantly, ing returnsto advertisers advertisers who were alert to these possibilities were those large-scale dealers in human credulity, the patent-medicinefirms. Sir William Osler wrotethat "thedesireto take medicineis perhapsthe greatestfeaturewhich distinguishesman from animals."' Patent medicinecapitalizedan age of curesand led to the growthof advertising, faith in miraclesby emphasizing The railroadand the telegraphsteadily scientific and development. trade, increasedthe efficiencyof advertisingmedia-chiefly weeklies, monthlies,
3
Harvey Cushing, The Life of Sir William Osler (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
I925),
I,
342.
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and quarterlies-which created a national market. In a country of vast extent the dailies expanded in relation to metropolitan markets and flourished by sensational appeals to larger numbers. After the invention of the electric light and the reduction of fire losses, the department store provided the advertising essential to their success. The newspaper, with the technological advances evident in the telegraph, the press associations, the manufacture of paper from wood, the rotary press, and the linotype, became independent of party support and became concerned with an increase in circulation and with all the devices calculated to bring about such an increase to meet the demands of advertising. The phenomenal increase in the production of goods and the demands for more efficient methods of distribution stimulated the expansion of newspaper production, and newspapers stimulated production by widening and intensifying the market. By the beginning of the twentieth century the new journalism directed by Pulitzer, Hearst, and Northcliffe had become entrenched in the Anglo-Saxon world. The Spanish-American War and the South African War were the preludes to its supremacy. Bismarck, even before i900, spoke of the power of the press. It had done a great deal of harm. It was the cause of the last three wars, .... the Danish press forced the King and the Governmentto annex Schleswig; the Austrianand South Germanpress agitated against us; and the Frenchpress contributedto the prolongationof the campaign in France." On January 28, i883, he said: You have only to look at the newspapersand see how empty they are, and how they fish out the ancient sea-serpent in order to have something to fill their columns.The feuilleton is spreadingmore and more, and if anything sensational occurs, they rush at it furiously and write it to death for whole weeks. This low water in political affairs, this distress in the journalistic world, is the highest testimonialfor a Minister of Foreign Affairs.' Bagehot wrote, "Happy are the people whose annals are vacant but woe to the wretched journalists that have to compose and write articles therein." Sir Wemyss Reid, editor of the Leeds Mercury, claimed that the interest of the English public in foreign affairs began with the The News's agitation over the Bulgarian atrocities in i876 and Gladstone's shrewdness in capital14Moritz Busch, Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of His History (New York: The Macmillan Company, i898), II, 175. 1 Ibid., p. 346.
9I
izing the agitation.From that time public opinionnever returnedto its interest in domesticproblems.As the "ancientGothicgenius, that sun which sets behindthe giganticpress of Mayence"was crushedby the book,so the In turn the newspaper was destinedto book was crushedby the newspaper. feel the effectsof the radio.With VictorHugo we can say, "It is the second towerof Babel of the humanrace." III of the collapseof In all this we can see at least a part of the background Westerncivilizationwhich begins with the presentcentury.The comparative peaceof the nineteenthcenturyis followedby a periodin whichwe have beenunableto finda solution to the problemof law and order,and have resortedto forceratherthanto persuasion, bulletsratherthanballots."I know only two ways in whichsociety can be governed-by publicopinionand by the sword,"wrote Macaulay. But Croker,representingthe Conservative position,claimedthat we governby the law savingus fromextremesof governmentby publicopinionor by the sword.The ruleof law becameless effective. WhereBismarckhad beenable to use The Times,TheDaily Telegraph, and The Pall Mall Gazetteand say, "It was easier,cheaper,morehumaneto his master supply the English journalswith news than to fight England,"'6 and the had control. They had newspapers grown beyond hand was gone, becomesomethingmore than his descriptionof "just printer'sink printed on paper."Wherediplomacyby paragraphshad reachedthe point that a referencein The Timesservedas a check to Frenchdebates,The Timeswas nowin otherhands.Northcliffehadcontrolof a powerwhichcouldbreakthe Asquithcabinet duringthe war. PresidentTheodoreRoosevelt and the big constick had beencreatedby the American press.This vast newinstrument of readersrendered obsoletethe machincernedwith reaching largenumbers the nineteenthcentury. ery for maintainingpeace which had characterized Guizotwrote of the great evil of democracy,"It readily sacrificesthe past and the future to what is supposedto be the interest of the present,"and that evil was accentuatedby the reign of the newspaperand its obsession with the immediate. But to paraphraseHilaire Belloc we must say of democracy, Alwayskeepa hold of nurse For fearof findingsomethingworse.
(New Russell Young, M. D. R. Young, ed., Men and Memories: Personal Reminiscences (New York and London: F. T. Neely, I901), P. 271.
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processesas developed desertionof the study of rationalizing Lippmann's of Freudianconcernwith the Wallas,followingthe emergence with Graham irrational,was a significantstep. It wouldscarcelybe decentin this gathering to refer to the implicationsto the social sciences, but one notes with alarm the changing fashions in economics.The breakup of the classical traditionof economicsis an indicationof the powerfulinfluenceof fashions in our times. At one time we are concernedwith tariffs, at another with seldom find it to their trusts, and still anotherwith money.As newspapers interest to pursue any subject for more than three or four days, so the economistbecomeswearyof particularinterestsor senses that the publicis wearyof them and changesaccordingly.And this paperwill be cited as an obsessionwith the obsessionwith the immediate.There is need for a study of economicsand insanity supportingthat of Durkheim on religion and
suicide.
The inability of the twentieth century to find a solution to the eternal problemof freedomand poweris basically significantto the study of economichistory.When the climate of opinionmakes impossibleany concern with the past or the future,the student findsit exceedinglydifficultto disor a point of view fromwhich to approachthe problem coveran anchorage of Europeancivilization.A recognitionof factorsaffectingirrationalityis a beginning.The church,the army and the police, industry,and possibly the drink tradehave been powerfulforces affectingfanaticism.A study of the drink trade cannot be undertakenhere, but the coffee houses in England after the Puritanrevolutionin the middleof the seventeenthcenturyweakened the position of the tavern and providedcenters of discussionwhich underminedthe position of the Stuarts. A change of the whole drinking habits of the United States followedthe dumpingof tea in Boston harbor, and it may be that the devotionto coffeehas had importantpoliticalresults. The relationbetweenbeveragesand intelligentdiscussionoffersan interesting bridgebetweeneconomichistory and political history. The drink trade has beensignificantfor tradeandwar.The economichistoryof North Amerby the French ica mightbe writtenaroundthe struggleof brandysupported against rum supportedby the English. It was the consideredview of C. C. Buell, who in the i 88o's edited the reminiscencesof generalsof the Civil War for Century,that it "was a whiskey war. With few exceptions,like Howard,all the uniongeneralskept themselvesgoingwith hardliquor.The men who came throughand succeededwere the ones who could stand up to their drink."'
'lWill Irwin, The Making of a Reporter (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons,
I942), p.
I46.
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or of keepproblemof civilizationis that of government The fundamental ing people quiet, or following Machiavelli "to content the people and to managethe nobles."All politicianswill echo the wordsof Lord Melbourne, "Damnthem! Why can't they keep quiet?"We are awareof the devicesof orientalempiresand of the empiresof CentralAmericathroughthe linking religionspersistedby of religionto the state. The Jewishand Mohammedan virtue of disciplineand the use of force. Greeceused the army and navy as sourcesof resistanceto externaldomination,and Rome used the army and the roadas meansof domination.Countrieswith a revolutionarytradition acquiredadaptabilityand a belief in the powerto accomplishchangeby individualefforts,but the right and ability to protest is not paralleledby an ability to accept responsibility.Vitality assumes the ability to reorganize traditionis saferin the state thanin religion. efficiently.But a revolutionary In Germanyas the home of the printingpress a revolutionarytraditionin religionwas supportedby the state. In Englandthe religiousrevolutionfollowed the revolutionof the state and facilitatedthe outbreakof Puritanism traditionmissed the and the growthof trade.In Canadathe revolutionary Frenchin the church,andin turnthe Englishin the state, with the migration of Loyalists after the Revolution,and providedthe basis for mutual misWeakeningof the Churchas a device to destroy fanaticism understanding. of and the emergence by the inventionof printing,the rise of Protestantism, left commerce as the greatstabilizer. in theAgeof Enlightenment philosophy Its influencewas evident in the comparativepeace of the nineteenthcentury.SamuelJohnsonsaid that therewere"fewways in whicha man can be moreinnocentlyemployedthan in getting money." the pricesystembringsits ownhandicaps Rationalitywhichaccompanies of disin the formationof monopolies.Large-scaleeffectivemechanization tributionnecessitateda single price and the search for devices to prevent outbreaksof competitivewarfare.The price system weakensthe profitmotive by its emphasison management.Cartels and formalismin commerce paralleledecclesiasticismin religionand in both cases initiative in thought was weakened.Volumesof economichistory were written about business firms,epitaphsin two volumes (GeorgeMoore), as part of the literatureof Ecclesiasticismand the devastatingeffectsof the depresthe newscriptures. sion broughton acuteparalysisof thoughtand the rushto suchillusionsand The price system broughtnot as securityand full employment. catchwords only rationalityin businessbut also luxuryand freedomfromwork.The intellectual snob who exploits by telling others how they are exploited and luxuriousdiscussionsof the class strugglehave been evident enough. We
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Harold A. Innis
of the class struggle,but, as Troeltschhas need an economicinterpretation pointedout, the objectivity of the price mechanismsupportsthe plausible The price system with its sterilizing finality of the Marxianinterpretation. minoritiesby powerhas destroyedideologiesand brokenup irreconcilable it has destroyedits own compellingthem to nametheirprice. Unrestrained, ideologysince it too has its price.In a sense religionis an effortto organize of knowlirrationalityand as such appearsin all large-scaleorganizations follows the generaltrendsof organizedreligiousbodiesas edge. Commerce does thoughtin the social sciences. "Most organizationsappearas bodies foundedfor the painless extinctionof the ideas of their founders."' AlexanderMurraywrote to ArchibaldConstable,the Edinburghpublisher,on July 7, i807: makingand if, in this age of constitution occurrence It will be no wonderful free the nationswhichhave long beenunscientifically universal improvement, shall becomescientifically servile-for it is only when peoplebegin to want that the laws and it was observed waterthat they thinkof makingreservoirs; intoa systemtill its virtueandtastehadperished.'9 of Romewereneverreduced As in organizedreligion,dissent appearson the fringesbringingthe skeptic and philosophersuch as might have written Wesley Mitchell's paper, or bringinginto being the EconomicHistory Associationwhich springsup on The principlethat the fringesof largeecclesiasticalacademicorganizations.' authorityis taken,nevergiven, begins to emerge.Or there may be a palace revolutionsuch as that started by Lord Keynes. "Dost thou not know my ?" (Count Oxenstierna). son, with how little wisdomthe worldis governed The outbreakof irrationality,which in the early part of the twentieth centurybecameevident in the increasinginterest in psychology following the steadyingeffectsof commercein the nineteenthcentury,is the tragedy of our time. The rationalizingpotentialitiesof the price system and its importancein developingpowersof calculationin the individualhave failed to preventa majorcollapse.It has been arguedthat man as a biologicalphenomenonhas been unable to sustain the excessive demandsof rationalism
G. P. Gooch, Life of Lord Courtney (London: Macmillan and Company, I920), p. 4i6. '9 Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable and His Literary Correspondents (Edinburgh, i873), I, 26i. " See Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches; also S. D. Clark, "Religious Organization and the Rise of the Canadian Nation i850-85," Report of the Canadian Historical Association, I944, pp. 86-97.
18
95
evident in the mathematics of the price system and of technology. Charles Dickens wrote to Charles Knight (January 30, i854): My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else-the representativesof the wickedest and most enormousvice of this time-the men who, throughlong years to come, will do more to damagethe really useful truths of political economy, than I could do (if I tried) in my whole life-the addled heads who would take the average of cold in the Crimeaduring twelve months, as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeen on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur-and who would comfort the labourerin travelling twelve miles a-day to and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another on the whole area of England, is not more than four miles. Bah! what have you to do with these!' How far does the spread of mathematics and the intensity of modern life create demands for irrationalism and fanaticism? Is the emergence of Freud and the psychologists a result of the spread of irrationalism or an effort to meet the problems of irrationalism? Has commercial development been effective in destroying religious centralization as a stabilizing influence to the point that new sources of power such as nationalism and autarchy with subordination to militarism have taken their place? Morley described the stubborn sentiment of race and the bitter antagonism of the church as the two most powerful forces affecting civilized society. In weakening the church, commerce has been unable to check nationalism, although religious institutions can be more effective than industrialism or commercialism in crushing intelligence. The breakdown of the press shown in the sharp decline in influence of the editorial in the twentieth century points in the direction of nationalism.' The printing press and new methods of communication have been developed as methods of division rather than co-operation. National and linguistic differences have been accentuated and internationalism weakened. The mechanization of art intensified nationalism. Where the stage meant an international interest, the movies and the talkies were subject to customs duties. Following its concentration on the problems of the immediate, commerce has lost its control as a stabilizer of power.
I Charles Knight, Passages of a Working Life During Half a Century (London, i865), III, i88. I Oswald Garrison Villard, The Disappearing Daily: Chapters in American Newspaper Evolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944).
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Harold A. innis
IV The significanceof economichistory in all this is shown in its concern with long-runtrendsand its emphasison trainingin a search for patterns It shouldcompelthe study of interrelaratherthan mathematicalformulae. tionshipsbetweenthe social sciencesand betweennations.It shouldrescue books"eachwith a hundred the social sciencesfromthe chargeof producing methodsof distributingthe fruits of productivelabouramongthose whose labour is unproductive."'It should weaken the position of the textbook whichhas becomesuch a powerfulinstrumentfor the closingof men'sminds with its emphasis on memory and its systematic checking of new ideas. Biases becomeentrenchedin textbookswhich representmonopoliesof the hathgainedmost publishingtradeand resistthe powerof thought."Learning by thosebookswherebythe printershave lost" (ThomasFuller). Imperfect competitionbetweeneconomictheorieshampersthe advancesof freedomof thought.Machineindustrythroughprintingdispenseswith thoughtor compels it to move in certain channels.The dispersionof thought throughthe printingindustrymakes attacks on monopolyincreasinglydifficult.In emphasizing a long-rangeapproachto social phenomena,economic history shouldcontributeto stability. Not only should it supplementpolitical and them check the tendencyin itself social history,it shouldin supplementing rangeof the social and in them to bias and fanaticism.Within the narrower of mathematical sciencesit shouldprovidea checkagainstthe specialization systems peculiarto a monetaryand a machineage and should indicate the extent and significanceof the irrationalas contrastedwith the rational.It of whichWesin the mathematicalapproach shouldoffsetthe superficiality ley Mitchell complains.This is to recognizethat the subjectis moredifficult if thanmathematics and to insist that tools mustbe used,and not described, In interpretationis not to be supersededby antiquarianism. the words of Cobden,political economyis "the highest exerciseof the humanmind, and the exact sciencesrequireby no meansso hardan effort."' Economicstends to becomea branchof political history and it is necessary to suggest alternativeapproachesand their limitations, to emphasize sociologywith its concernwith institutions,geography,and technology.By drawingattention to the limitationsof the social sciences and of the price system it can show the importanceof religionand of factorshamperingthe efficiencyof the pricesystem. Not only doesit introducea balanceto constitutional and legal history, it draws attention to the penchant for mathematics and for other scientific tools which have warped the humanities.
'Henry Holt, Garrulities of an Octogenarian Editor (Boston: Houghton Miffin Com-
pany, 1923), P. T04. 24
John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London, i887), I, 323.
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Economichistory may provide grapplingirons with which to lay hold of areas on the fringe of economics,whether in religion or in art, and with which,in turn,to enrichothersubjects,as well as to rescueeconomicsfrom whichpulverizesothersubjectsand makes a broad the present-mindedness almost impossible.2' Economichistorydemandsthe perspectiveto approach reducejurisdictionaldisputesto an absurdity.The use of economictheory as a device for economizing knowledgeshouldbe extendedand not used to destroyothersubjectsor an interestin them. GoldwinSmithwrote,"Social scienceif it is to take the place of religionas a conservativeforcehas not yet developeditself or got firmhold of the popularmind."' Economichistory the limits of the problemof determining can contributeto the fundamental social sciences.Withouta solutionto this problemtherecan be no futurefor them."Thereis no use in printingin italics whenyou have no ink." The circulationof printedmatter cheapenedthoughtand destroyedthe prestige of the great works of the past which were collected and garnered before the introductionof movable type. Rational thought and art consequently had more influence.Europeancivilizationlived off the intellectual capital of Greekcivilization,the spiritualcapital providedby the Hebrew civilization,the materialcapital acquiredby looting the specie reservesof of the New World. CentralAmerican civilizations,and the naturalresources Crozierwrotewith regardto England: inventionand It pays her betterto buy her intellect,penetration, originality, so on,whenshewantsthemandwhereshewantsthem,thanto breedthem..... nationssupplyher with nearlyall and Franceand othercontinental Germany in medicine, thathaveto be madein scienceandphilosophy, the newdepartures and in in new chemical the art criticism, the of war; in scholarship and higher of the scopeof musicandof art.' andin enlargements industrial processes; He might have extendedthe argumentto Westerncivilization. The enormouscapacity of WesternEuropeancivilizationto loot has left little opportunityfor considerationof the problemswhich follow the exhaustionof materialto be looted. But this civilizationhas showncontinual concernin the commonman and in the distributionof loot. Perhaps economic history can begin from this point to make its contributionin the buildingup of spiritual,intellectual,andmaterialcapital,since it is not concernedwith the belief in the commonmanbut with the commonmanhimself.
The University of Toronto
HAROLD
A.
INNIS
' Alec Lawrence Macfie, An Essay on Economy and Value: Being an Enquiry into the Real Nature of Economy (London: Macmillan and Company, 1936). a Essays on Questions of the Day, Political and Social (New York and London: Macmillan and Company, i893), p. 39. ' John Beattie Crozier, History of Intellectual Development on the Lines of Modern Evolution (London: Longmans, Green and Company, i90i), III, i66-67.

Economic Signific of Culture

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Economic History Association

of Culture Significunce OntheEconomic

EDWIN F. GAY, my predecessor, in the inauguralpresidentialaddress

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

On theEconomic Significance of Culture

On the EconomicSignificanceof Culture

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

pany, 1923), P. T04. 24

John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London, i887), I, 323.

On the Economic Significanceof Culture

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