A Dubious Science: Political Economy and the Social Question in 19th-century France

Sage (history, Whittier College) explores the struggle of 19th century French political economy to achieve scientific legitimacy and academic status as it came up against la question sociale, or how realities of poverty and labor unrest spawned by industrial capitalism threw doubt on the supposed scientific merits of the "laws" of political economy. She argues that the discipline engaged in a protective strategy by coming up with the category of economie sociale, which "held everything that did not comfortably fit into the narrowly-defined science of political economy, namely la question sociale," thereby aiming to protect the scientific status and legitimacy of political economy. This effort, however, escaped political economy's control, introducing into public discourse a way of talking about la question sociale that undermined the basic tenets of their "science." Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)