CAIRNES,JOHN,ELLIOT AND THE REHABILITATION OF THE CLASSICAL WAGE FUNDDOCTRINE

John Elliot Cairnes is primarily remembered for his defence of the cla ssical wage fund doctrine, and for his attempt to revive the classical system of economic thought in the mid-1870s. In contrast with this st andard textbook appraisal of Cairnes, the Jevons-Marshall-Vint thesis contends that, in attempting to revitalize the doctrine, Cairnes in fa ct explained away so much of what characterized it that its final form bore little resemblance to the doctrine held by his classical predece ssors. In this paper we dispute the Jevons-Marshall-Vint thesis and ar gue that Cairnes's recasting of the doctrine did fit entirely within t he classical framework. Why Cairnes should have rallied in support of a doctrine by then widely condemned, partly because of Mill's alleged retraction of it and partly because of newly emerging ideas on wages a nd unions, is not difficult to explain. The recurring economic stagnat ion in Ireland, which acted as a bulwark against industrialization the re, together with the social, moral and economic dilemma created by th e growth of trade unionism in Britain, presented political economists with a particular set of problems. For these, as Cairnes saw it, class ical political economy, as a coherent method of analysis, provided the best hope of showing the way towards possible remedies.