Departmental Bulletin Paper 「経済成長」の歴史的起源(鈴木富久教授退任記念号)
Historical Origin of `Economic Growth'(Special Issue Dedicated to Professor SUZUKI Tomihisa)

竹内, 真澄

「経済成長」の歴史的起源Historical Origin of `Economic Growth'竹内,真澄TAKEUCHI,Masumiキ-ワ-ド:経済成長,スペンサ-,社会成長,社会有機体,競争的個人主義Keywords : economic growth, Herbert Spencer, social growth,social organic body, competitive individualismThe concept of `Economic Growth' of modern economics was made in around 1950s. But we can trace it back to the concept `Social Growth' in Herbert Spencer. He used it in the first volume of `Principles of Sociology' at 1876. `Social growth' means the process of evolving societies in which massive population compound or recompound from hords to relatively bigger societies. He thought a society as an organism. Therefore he thought an analogy between society and organic body like plant and animal. The idea `growth' comes from the analogy. I analyze the two influencial lines in economic theories. One is the process from Spencer, thorough Carl Menger and Friedrich von Wieser, to Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Another is the process of evolutionistic philosophy given by Spencer who directly visited U. S. A. in the end of 19 th century. It seems that even W. W. Rostow accepted the evolutionistic view about national economy from American context after Spencer's visit. We can understand economists in these two lines share an idea that market is an organic body. On the one side market consists of competitive individualism. On the other side market consists of organism. These can be not in contradiction. Originaly this view of market was built by Spencer. We can conclude that the idea of social organic body originaly made in sociology have been penetrated in economic theory after WW II. until today.


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