London School of Bourgeois Political Economy

a current in bourgeois economic theory that developed in the late 19th century in the department of political economy at the University of London. The founder of the school was W. S. Jevons, and his followers included E. Kennan, F. A. Hayek, and L. C. Robbins.

The London school’s theories rest on an attempt to explain economic phenomena in terms of individual psychology, and to deny the tenets of the classical school of bourgeois political economy. It views society as an aggregate of economic individuals whose actions are guided by purely psychological considerations of gain. Social production, therefore, is subject not to economic laws but rather to the free play of market forces. The private market and the free functioning of market forces are natural and permanent categories. Orthodox representatives of this school exclude the possibility of society’s conscious control over economic development, restricting the entire scope of economic science to the study of supply and demand, which they consider to be the basic economic categories regulating social development.

The London school is one of the most reactionary currents of bourgeois economic thought, openly defending the interests of the capitalist monopolies. Contemporary liberal bourgeois economic science holds to be contradictory and therefore rejects the fundamental theoretical concepts of the London school with respect to limiting governmental intervention in the economy. The Conservative Party of Great Britain has made certain ideas of the London school the basis of its economic policies.