Concluding Remarks

We have tried to understand Ruskin’s work of aesthetics and economics as a whole by the image of ‘Ruskin’s triangle’, or the trinity of Wealth = Life = Beauty. Our last questions are how we evaluate his economic thought and its relation to romanticism.

1.10.1 Economics of Ruskin

If we concentrate on the aspect of economics, his economics may be safely called ‘Economics of Artistic Life’. This image model has two aspects. First, formally speaking, his economics largely depends on the use of a metaphor of aesthetics, at which the structure of aesthetics in terms of ‘Life’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Mind’, and ‘Nature’ is applied to the exploration of economic systems in terms of ‘Life’, ‘Wealth’, ‘Mind’, and ‘Nature’, as observed in Figure 1.1. In this enterprise, the integration of art and economy relies on the common conception of Life. Second, substantially speaking, his economics urges the organization of economy dominated by the conception of Beauty with an emphasis on the functions of ‘labour’, as observed in Figure 1.2. Formally as well as substantially, Ruskin’s normative economics is, as it were, romanticization of economy (or Romantisierung der Welt a la Novalis). This approach is exactly what Isaiah Berlin termed the essence of romanti­cism as ‘a kind of tyranny of art over life’ (Berlin 1999, xi).

In view of the relationship between economics and ethics, I would prefer to call Ruskin’s economic thought the ‘Economics of Virtuous Utilization of Resources’ in order to identify it with a distinctive status in normative economics, which is different from ‘Economics of Efficient Allocation of Resources’ and ‘Economics of Just Distribution of Resources’. The three grand systems of ethics, Right (Justice), Good (Efficiency), and Virtue (Excellence) should have their counterparts in economics (Shionoya 2005).

I have argued elsewhere that the rise of the idea of the welfare state (new liberalism) in Britain, or the departure from nineteenth-century liberalism at the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, was not based on the ideas of utilitarian philosophy and neoclassical economics of the Cambridge School, but rather on the ideas of idealist philosophy and historical economics at Oxford, and proposed the ‘Oxford approach to the welfare state’ (Shionoya 2010).

In the ‘Oxford approach’ Ruskin and Green played the leading role and were followed by A. Toynbee, J. A. Hobson, L. T. Hobhouse, and other new liberals. While Ruskin’s normative economics was founded on the concep­tion of the artistic life, it was Green who delved into a philosophy of ethical life by developing the perfectionist ethics of British idealism. Linking Green with Ruskin is essential for the ‘Oxford approach’ to welfare thought. Their normative thoughts share in common the values of virtue as self-realization. The ‘Oxford approach’ enables us to conceptualize the economics of virtue. Although Ruskin’s paternalism did not allow all workers the ability to work freely, his basic idea of reforming society on the basis of capability and cooperation can be accepted in the form of liberal perfectionism instead of elitist perfectionism.

1.10.2 Romanticism of Ruskin

The question of why art (Beauty) can play a dominant role over economy (Wealth) in Ruskin has much bearing on the interpretation of romanti­cism. Why does this role of art belong to the core attribute of romanticism? The ‘tyranny of art over life’ in itself is not the essence of romanticism; it is simply an appearance of something more fundamental. The fundamental premises of romanticism are twofold: first, what Ruskin calls Life as the ‘entire human nature', which includes ‘reason', ‘feeling', and ‘will', or ‘head, heart, and hand', and second, what might be called the organic conception of ‘nature', ‘man', and ‘society'. Art is the most easily available practical candidate for expressing the working of the ‘whole human nature' through observations of nature. Hence, art, literature, and music among others became the symbolic carriers of the romantic movements. In Britain and Germany poetry (Romantische Poesie) played the role of the pioneer. The same role for implementing romanticism is carried out also by ethics and history because they are essentially concerned with the life of the ‘whole human nature'.

Over the past two hundred years there has been a controversy around the definition of romanticism. Referring to the criteria of romanticism which were proposed by the representative authors in the debate during the past century, we have the following list: ‘originality, creativity, imagin­ation, and genius' (Smith 1925); ‘organicism, dynamism, and diversitar- ianism' (Lovejoy 1941); ‘imagination, organic nature, symbol and myth' (Wellek 1974 [1949]); ‘individualism, imagination, and feeling' (Furst 1979); and ‘dynamic organicism (i.e. change, imperfection, growth, diver­sity, creative imagination, and unconscious' (Peckham 1974 [1951]). It is not difficult to find these elements in Ruskin's writings, but it is not convincing to identify his thought with romanticism by such fragmentary features. Moreover, most of these criteria emphasize critical aspects against the world view of the Enlightenment, but romanticism as anti­Enlightenment does not consist of critical elements alone; rather it endeav­ours to grasp the world as a whole on the basis of entire human capability and to take a moderate course in the midst of the extremes. Therefore, romanticism is always confronted with various contradictions within itself: that is, dynamics versus statics, change versus order, progressive versus conservative, growth versus stability, imagination versus reason, creativity versus routine, fragment versus system, creation versus imitation, eternity versus perfection, etc. The German romantics called these contradictions ‘Romantische Ironie' (“romantic irony”).

Although Ruskin does not talk about the term romanticism, he states that ‘the real and proper use of the word romantic is simply to characterise an improbable or unaccustomed degree of beauty, sublimity, or virtue' (vol. 12, 54) in one of his Edinburgh lectures (1853a): these feelings are regarded as the holiest and truest part of our being. We now see that his favourite words ‘Admiration, Hope, and Love' are identified by himself with ‘romantic’, and are concerned with the aggressive aspect of romanti­cism urging the roles of the irrational, the imaginative, the spontaneous, and the visionary.

Man being thus the crowning and ruling work of God, it will follow that all his best art must have something to tell about himself, as the soul of things, and ruler of creatures. It must also make this reference to himself under a true conception of his own nature. Therefore all art which involves no reference to man is inferior or nugatory.... Now the basest thought possible concerning him is, that he has no spiritual nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual - coherently and irrevocably so; neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other. All great art confesses and worships both. (vol. 7, 264)

In Unto This Last, Ruskin uses the word ‘romantic’ for economic discourse: Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem; sometimes to be solved only in a passionate manner. (vol. 17, 94)

Relating to romantic irony, too, he mentions the paradoxical inconsistency of his polymathic statements owing to his pursuit of the totality of objects, although he does not use the German concept, but a jest, in his Cambridge inaugural address (1858b):

Perhaps some of my hearers this evening may occasionally have heard it stated of me that I am rather apt to contradict myself.

The notion of ‘polygon’ is central to Ruskin's approach. He was convinced of the so-called theory of polygonal truth that the truth should be pursued in various ways from different angles because objects are many-sided, and that as a result, the consequences of such pursuit are liable to contradict each other. Ruskin attempted the romantic synthesis of knowledge, start­ing from the overall human soul and pursuing the total organic system of thought with regard to nature, man, and society. The result is the ‘polygon’ of his thought. ‘Ruskin’s triangle’ is the simplest example of his ‘polygon’. In ‘Ruskin’s triangle’ Life integrates two other angles, that is, Beauty and Wealth. Whatever angles there may be in Ruskin’s ‘polygon’, Life inte­grates all other angles.