Thorstein Veblen
Review author to: 'L'individualisme économique et social: ses origines 
- son évolution - ses formes contemporaaines. Par ALBERT SCHATZ. 
Paris: Armand Colin, 1907. 12mo, pp. 590.
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 17, No. 6. (Jun., 1909), pp. 
378-379.
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[378] M. Schatz's book is an excellent account of the part which 
individualism has played in economic science and in social policy from 
the beginning of modern times in Europe to the present. The account, 
in the main, is necessarily confined to France and to England, or, 
rather, the English-speaking peoples. How it has happened that this 
philosophy of life, which the author rates as substantially sound, has 
had so slight an effect, on the whole, outside of these countries, is a 
point not satisfactorily discussed. This territorial limitation of the 
liberal-individualistic philosophy is a sufficiently curious and 
noteworthy phenomenon, and an account of the growth and 
ramifications of the manner of thinking which we call by this name 
should presumably have offered some explanation, at least as a 
working hypothesis, of its peculiarly restricted diffusion. While 
individualism has from time to time spread into other regions, and has 
even made a segment of history outside of the French-English region, 
e. g., in early modern Italy, it remains true that only within this region 
has this philosophy shown a spontaneous growth, and its excursions 
have been outward from this region rather than in the contrary 
direction. A further fact of the same kind [379] may be noted, a fact 
likewise brought out, without comment, by M. Schatz's survey, but 
also likewise not accounted for by him. While the earliest modern 
development and effects of individualism occur in Italy, followed 
presently by the French and later by the philosophers of the Low 
Countries, the lead falls to the English before modern times have 
advanced very far, and the lead afterward, until well into the 
nineteenth century at least, remains with them. It is characteristic of M. 
Schatz's discussion that the causes of this peculiar manner of growth 
and diffusion do not engage his attention. Indeed, well qualified as he 
seems to be for such an analysis, he does not go into the causal 
connection between the growth of individualism and the cultural 
situation out of which it arose and within which it flourished. His 
discussion of the origins and evolution of individualism, and of the 
liberalism based on it, is a tracing of its documentary derivation rather 
than a genetic account. But if this is to be accounted a fault it may 
perhaps be said that it is a deliberately chosen limitation of the field of 
inquiry rather than a matter of oversight. If so it is to be regretted that 
the author should have felt constrained so to limit the scope of his 
inquiry.
An interesting outcome of this study is the emphasis thrown on the 
continuity of economic science and of liberal policy throughout the 
period since the predominance of mercantilism. Seen in the light of 
their philosophical and psychological preconceptions, the various 
schools appear to be variants and phases of a common scheme, 
gradually unfolding and maturing by the help of controversies that 
prove in the outcome to have been nothing more serious than 
factional disputes about matters of detail. Substantial discrepancies 
are absent from the general scheme of modern economic science. 
They occur only between the successful main line of individualistic 
thought and the transient reassertion of older ideals. But hitherto 
individualism has held the field, even though its forces have latterly 
been scattered and disorganized in a greater degree than once was 
the case.
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY