The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources.

Sometimes history brings together a special combination of resources and people that form a center of intellectual influence. The Weekly Sage will occasionally consider such “Schools” together. As such this is the first of a five-week series on Chicago-School Economists. This will be understood simply to mean uniquely impactful members of the faculty of economics at the University of Chicago in the 20^th century.

Jacob Viner

• “If one should ask what profit, beyond the satisfaction of curiosity, knowledge of the history of ideas brings, I would not claim much more for it than that by helping us to understand the mental processes of our predecessors it helps us to attain humility with respect to the validity and the durability of our own ideas. I would not deny that, if the study of the history of ideas were to become a mass phenomenon, one result might be a general weakening of convictions, and that this might not be a “good thing.” The addicts of the history of ideas, however, are certain to remain few in numbers, and they may perhaps have a claim to toleration on the ground that they have a providential role as a weak counterforce to dogma ruling by inheritance and not by merit and to undue attachment to one’s own new ideas through hubris or intellectual arrogance.”[1]

• “Under the impact of depression conditions the economists have in large numbers abandoned the traditional economic doctrines, with their emphasis on the long view, and have turned instead to the short view which government and the lay public have always tended to take. It is true that in adopting the short view many of the younger economists have not merely taken over the lay notions bodily. Some of them have, in fact, given them a theoretical elaboration which for subtlety, refinement, and elegance need make no apologies to the older economics, and which remains faithful to older theorizing in at least one respect, that the tradition of unintelligibility to the layman is scrupulously observed. It is the quality of the judgment displayed, and not the quality of the analytical skill, which I venture to question. No matter how refined and how elaborate the analysis, if it rests solely on the short view it will still be close to the layman’s economics and still be a structure built on shifting sands.”[2]

Jacob Viner (1892-1970) was an economist, economic advisor, and multi-disciplinary scholar with a significant influence in American academia during the 20^th century. His scholastic excellence was a feature of his career from the very beginning, as he studied under Frank Taussig, a leading economic theorist in the field of international trade, at Harvard University, receiving his PhD in Economics in 1922. During World War I, as a graduate student, he worked at the U.S. Tariff Commission and the U.S. Shipping Board, using and sharpening his own growing expertise on the global economy and trade issues. Then, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, a posting he maintained for roughly 30 years, while again working for the United States Government in the Department of the Treasury during the Great Depression and World War II.[3]

Such experiences, combined with his top-level studies, led Viner to significant theoretical contributions in economic theory, mainly demonstrated in his 1937 work, Studies in the Theory of International Trade. Viner also worked with leading Chicago economist Frank H. Knight to edit the Journal of Political Economy from 1928-1946, a period described as “the peak of its distinction.”[4] Such a platform enabled Viner to develop numerous significant articles and a broad impact on the economic field in general.

Viner’s written scholarship exemplifies an incredible objectivity. As one example of this style, Viner concludes a largely critical chapter on the gold standard by stating, “The gold standard is a wretched standard, but it may conceivably be the best available to us.”[5] Viner’s articles and books provide an immersive experience in the moderate, balanced analytical approach. He consistently weighs both sides to an issue, conceding the strengths and noting the weaknesses in all relevant arguments, even his own.

This approach made Viner an ideal academic to approach the key issues of economic history. While he framed his approach to the history of ideas, particularly pertaining to the market, as a matter of intellectual curiosity, Viner produced numerous essays in this field, as well as full-length works, such as The Role of Providence in the Social Order. This work also serves to separate Viner from many other economists who focus solely on developing technical frameworks and statistical series. Viner, by contrast, was willing to dig significantly into the impact of faith, religious leaders, and ecclesiastical structures. Quoting from Augustine, Chrysostom, and Ambrose alongside Adam Smith, Bernard Mandeville, and John Maynard Keynes is not something that readers expect, or that many authors can achieve.

Thus, Viner’s career composes top-level work in three areas – academia, literature, and civil service. In each, he left a significant legacy, whether in students (such as Milton Friedman) mentored, ideas traced, or policies advocated. He advanced technical economics significantly, particularly in the area of cost and supply curves. Further, he maintained an awareness of the doctrines of classical economics through intellectual history at a time when progress in the field led many top scholars to mischaracterize the older views. His willingness to engage with and criticize American policy combined with a serious commitment to factual rigor that brought a uniquely objective tone. While he did not embrace the mathematical or Keynesian revolutions in the economic discipline, Viner helped to shape the next generation of scholars through his influential role in the Chicago School. While flashier economists may have been more prominent in their own time, Viner’s lasting impact is a lesson to all of us regarding the merits of balance, patience, and excellence in effort.

• “Keynes denies the validity of the ‘classical’ doctrine that interest is the reward for saving…on the ground that if a man hoards his savings in cash he earns no interest, though he saves just as much as before…By analogous reasoning he could deny that wages are the reward for labor, or that profit is the reward for risk-taking, because labor is sometimes done without anticipation or realization of a return, and men who assume financial risks have been known to incur losses as a result instead of profits.”[6]

• “At this moment, there is considerable resentment in Norway at the requirement attached to our $50,000,000 loan that Norway, which lives on its shipping earnings, must carry in American ships the American goods that it buys with the proceeds of this loan. Such practices were appropriately characterized by Adam Smith as introducing into statesmanship the sneaking arts of underling tradesmen. If followed by domestic business at home, they would be frowned on by our laws as constituting “full-line forcing.” We have no need, at this time, to stimulate artificially the export of our commodities. In the light of the general principles of trade which our government is advocating with much moral fervor, we should either clean up the charter of the Export-Import Bank, or frankly avow that we believe in our principles only when they do not prevent us from doing what we like to do”.[7]

[1] Jacob Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order, (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1972), 112-113.

[2] Jacob Viner, The Long View and the Short: Studies in Economic Theory and Policy, (Illinois: The Free Press, 1958), 112.

[3] Jacob Viner, Essays on the Intellectual History of Economics, ed. by Douglas A. Irwin, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 5.

[4] Ibid, 5.

[5] Jacob Viner, International Economics, (Illinois: The Free Press, 1951), 139.

[6] Jacob Viner, The Long View and the Short: Studies in Economic Theory and Policy, (Illinois: The Free Press, 1958), 94.

[7] Jacob Viner, International Economics, (Illinois: The Free Press, 1951), 341.