Economic historian and social reformer, born in London, UK. He lectured in economic history at Oxford, and also to numerous workers' adult education classes, and undertook social work in the East End of London with Samuel Barnett. He is best known as the coiner of the phrase and author of The Industrial Revolution in England (1884). Toynbee Hall, a university settlement in Whitechapel, London, was founded in his memory in 1885.
Arnold Toynbee (August 23, 1852 – March 9, 1883) was an English economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working class.
Biography
Toynbee was born in London as the son of the physician Joseph Toynbee, a pioneering otolaryngologist in his time; the more famous universal historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), with whom he is often confused, was his nephew. Toynbee attended public schools in Blackheath and Woolwich. in fact, Toynbee coined, or at least effectively popularised, the term "Industrial Revolution" in the Anglophone world—in Germany and elsewhere it had been brought into circulation earlier by Friedrich Engels, also under the impression of the industrial changes in Britain. Toynbee died at age 30 in 1883, after his health had rapidly deteriorated probably due to exhaustion by excessive work.
Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England
A collection of Toynbee's lectures was published posthumously in 1884 and soon became a classic of British economic history. In them, Toynbee reconstructs the theories of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo in their respective historic contexts and vice versa.
At the same time, Toynbee warned not to dismiss deductive economics altogether in favour of the historical approach; Toynbee criticised "party historians" because "they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present". Instead, according to Toynbee, one "must pursue facts for their own sake, but penetrated with a vivid sense of the problems of your own time".
Also, according to Toynbee, applying the historical method in economics would reveal how supposedly universal economic laws were in fact relative. Toynbee considered few laws as universally true, such as the law of diminishing returns.
Another idea Toynbee dismissed was to consider free competition as universally beneficial to economic and societal progress, especially as reflected in its apotheosis in Social Darwinism, which promotes laissez-faire capitalism. Toynbee suggests to distinguish between "a struggle for mere existence and a struggle for a particular kind of existence." From the very beginning of history, he argues, all human civilization was essentially designed to "interfere with this brute struggle. We intend to modify the violence of the fight, and to prevent the weak being trampled under foot." Although economic competition does have its advantages, being the driving force behind technical progress, these were "gained at the expense of an enormous waste of human life and labour, which might be avoided by regulation." Toynbee suggests to differentiate between competition in production on the one hand, and competition in the distribution of goods on the other hand: "[...] the struggle of men to outvie one another in production is beneficial to the community;
He was the first to historically identify and name the British "Industrial Revolution."
Social commitment
For Toynbee, early industrial capitalism and the situation of the working class in it was not only a subject of ivory-tower studies; He read for workers in large industrial centres and encouraged the creation of trade unions and co-operatives. Toynbee also encouraged his students to offer free courses for working class audiences in their own neighbourhoods.
Inspired by Toynbee's ideas, Samuel Augustus Barnett and Henrietta Barnett founded the first university settlement in 1884, shortly after his death, which was named Toynbee Hall in his honour and still exists today. The concept to bring upper and middle class students into lower class neighbourhoods, not only to provide education and social aid, but to actually live and work together with their inhabitants, soon inspired a worldwide movement of university settlements. this was especially important at a time when class divisions were much stronger, social mobility was minimal, and the living conditions of the poor were completely unknown to many members of the upper class. Toynbee Hall attracted many students, especially from Wadham College and Balliol College where Toynbee had taught.
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