Arnold Toynbee
Arnold Toynbee ( born August 23, 1852 in London, † March 9, 1883 in Wimbledon ) was a British folk economist and economic historian. Toynbee was also known for his social commitment to the working class.
Life
The physicians and ear, nose and throat specialist Joseph Toynbee was the father of Arnold Toynbee. His uncle Harry Valpy Toynbee (1861-1941), however, was the father of the philosopher of history Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), with whom he is often confused due to the similarity in name.
Arnold Toynbee attended private schools in Blackheath and Woolwich and studied from 1873 economics at the University of Oxford, first at Pembroke College, in 1875 at Balliol College.
1878 ended Toynbee his studies in economics at Balliol College, Oxford and worked from then on there as a teacher. His lectures on the history of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the 18th and 19th century proved to be extremely influential. Toynbee coined in the English-speaking world largely the term industrial revolution. Toynbee died in 1883 at the age of 30, after his health had probably deteriorated rapidly as a result of overwork.
"Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England "
A collection of Toynbee lectures was published posthumously in 1884 and quickly became a classic of British economic history. In it, he reconstructed the theories of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo in their historical context and argued for a more historically oriented interpretation of economic developments since the time of its current political economy is too abstract. For example, could only be understood historically, why " 2512 people have half the land in the United Kingdom". In addition, the historical perspective make the relativity allegedly universal economic laws clearly. Free trade, for example, is not always beneficial for the economic development, but only under certain conditions that are likely to be made absolute not -is. Few economic laws possess universal validity, as the law of the falling rate of profit. Therefore, there is no generally accepted scientific rules about how far the state should intervene in the market economy; depending on the situation different degrees of regulation could be useful.
Toynbee warns, however, unilaterally abandon the deductive economics in favor of economic history; rather abstract theory and historical empiricism would influence each other: economic Theoretical knowledge enabled a better understanding of historical events. Toynbee warned against, as read into "party historians ' controversies of the present to the past. Rather, one must " follow the facts for their own sake, but with a keen sense of the problems of his own time ".
Toynbee criticized the theoretical view that competition is generally conducive to economic and social development, and in particular the time of his elevation emerging competition in social Darwinism. Toynbee suggests to distinguish between a " struggle for existence " and a " struggle for a certain type of existence ." The whole of human culture was always designed it to intervene in the " brutal struggle for existence. We want to mitigate and prevent the weak are trampled the violence of the struggle. " Although economic competition have certainly benefits - without him there is no progress. However, these benefits would be "bought enormous waste of human life and work, which could be avoided by regulation" with a.
He proposes to differentiate between competition in production on the one hand and in the distribution of goods on the other hand: "The struggle of people to outdo each other in production, is useful; their struggle for the division of the common goods produced is not. The stronger side will dictate their terms; and in the early days of competition the capitalists actually used all their power to oppress the workers and oppressed wages up to the hunger line. This kind of competition has to be curbed; there is no historical example that he could have survived long without that he would have been either restricted by the merger [ of workers ], or by legislation. In England, both antidotes in use, the former by the trade unions, the latter by labor. " Market competition is in itself neither good nor bad, but like a stream whose natural direction and flow rate would have to be studied in order to channel it by batters in a useful direction. However, he was in the early stages of industrialization as a "gospel" has been seen in which one have to believe, and departing from the spirit " was almost considered immoral ."
Social Commitment
Toynbee dealt not only academically with the social question, but was actively involved in improving the living conditions of the proletariat. Among other things, he gave lectures for workers in large British industrial cities and supported the establishment of trade unions and cooperatives. His focus was the slums of Whitechapel, east London, where he is, for example, began for the establishment of public libraries for the workers.
Shortly after his death (1884 ) until today an existing project in East London was named after Toynbee - Toynbee Hall, which became an important model of the settlement movement to today's community work. An important element of the project was that students and teachers not only voluntary workers taught, but lived with them and worked. At Toynbee Hall project is mainly engaged members of Balliol College, Toynbee's former place of work.