Bertrand Russell was perhaps the last great philosopher to take an active interest in economics. After a brief, youthful engagement with the economics of socialism in 1889, Russell wrote on economic questions in three separate periods up to 1918, and in each case there was a clear political motivation. The first, in 1895–96, arose from his investigation of Marxism as a creed and of German social democracy as its principal contemporary political expression. The second, in 1903–04, was provoked by his (...) intervention on the free trade side of the tariff controversy. Finally, in 1915–18, Russell's commitment to Guild Socialism and to war resistance led him to some profound, if rather speculative, reflections on the economics of libertarian socialism. In this paper I discuss each of these three phases in Russell's economic thought and conclude that he never went far enough in his opposition to neo-classical theory in general, or to its utilitarian foundations in particular. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Through a brief analysis of the reflections of some prestigious contemporary philosophers such as Norberto Bobbio, Mulford Quickert Sibley, Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann, Michael Allen Fox, David Cortright, Larry May, John Rawls, Eric Reitan, Johan Galtung and David Boersema, this essay reconstructs Russell's pacifist commitment during the First World War. This dramatic event represented a real watershed for his multifaceted and ingenious personality, leading to his new political and civil commitment. Through a series of articles and lectures, he fought against (...) militarism, was in favour of a world government and underlined the psychological causes of war. All this coincided in part with the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the ideas of which he initially shared; at the time of the Leeds Convention, he believed that the March revolution would involve a complete political and economic change at the international level by removing the causes of war. It was not by chance that he decided to join the Independent Labour Party, a choice that marked his separation from the Liberals. Although the latter explored in depth different forms of pacifism, Russell implicitly recalled the formula ‘Pax enim non belli privatio’ by Baruch Spinoza, supporting a fundamental paradigm of the modern political theory. (shrink)