Prelude: Nine lives of a cat 
   With Pat Gunning and Anthony Waterman chasing me, I can safely conclude that 
   I  am not safe-----  I will be caught if I cannot run away. So it looks like 
   the chase has begun. 
         First, thanks to Anthony, let us start with Spinozas dictum [not to 
   ridicule,  not  to laugh,  not  to  detest,  but to understand]. It is 
   particularly apt because historical  scholarship is like trying to figure 
   out the inheritance of a house in which live. Our ancestors have left us a 
   house they built with great care and love, and we certainly have inherited 
   much that enriches us and guides our lives. No, we are not to ridicule or 
   lament or curse those who have left us bequests. I am also sure that the 
   very impulse that takes us to study history of thought is that we have a 
   sense of respect for the originators of the ideas that shape our lives. 
         However, we know we have great and shining jewels, but we may also 
   have inherited certain things that are not as great as the others from our 
   points of view. I believe that historical scholarship is entitled to sort 
   the more enduring ideas from the less enduring ones. 
         Pats caution is taken in good spirit. To avoid being surreal, I have 
   two reasons not to set up a standard of evaluation. The second is that this 
   community wants historical studies and may not like to indulge much in 
   methodology. The first reason was that setting an abstract standard was 
   self-defeating, say when Menger took to jihad for methods. Clearly, I did 
   not see an  effective method to talk about methods. 
         Instead, I think we can resort to a sorting process, trying to note 
   omissions  or gaps.  Let  me  illustrate this with Adam Smiths idea of 
   unintended consequence. With hindsight, we can look forward to see what was 
   not seen before. 
         I have great respect for any cat with nine lives. Adam Smith is the 
   kind of lion who hunted down a big beast (named economics) to make a great 
   feast. I say this because his notion of unintended consequence can be traced 
   to later developments in at least nine different tracks. Here is a list: 
 
   1- The birth and rebirth of economics as a science (Whately, Robbins); 
   2- Journey to meaning without data (microeconomics); 
   3- Journey to data without meaning (macroeconomics); 
   4-  Exchange  theory  (Menger,  Walras)  versus trade theory (Ricardo, 
   Samuelson); 
   5- Rational choice (Walras-Pareto, Arrow-Debreu); 
   6- Spontaneous origin of institutions (Menger, Coase, Williamson); 
   7- The rise of libertarian, Marxian and Keynesian views on the states  role; 
   8- The normative-positive debate  (Friedman, Leontief, Debreu); and 
   9- Says Law and monetary theory (Fisher, Keynes, Friedman, Lucas). 
 
   The point of arrival: 
   The economy existed before Smith, and people talked about it, but they could 
   not turn their talks into a science, as they were trapped in the discourse 
   on morality of profiting. Smith forged the nail of unintended consequence to 
   attach beneficial social consequences to the pursuit of self-interest, even 
   if not intended. Being selfish became not just harmless, but also beneficial 
   and hence respectable. With the further notion of a market mechanism, the 
   study of self-interest became a science.  But subsequent developments did 
   not do full justice to Smiths eminent contribution. 
 
   I  suspect  that  three  things unhinged Smiths contribution. They are 
   respectively (1) empirical relevance, and (2) meaningfulness of explanation 
   and (3) descriptive completeness. Without defining these in the abstract, 
   let us take an example of exchange to illustrate the simplest way to look at 
   them. 
 
   Let us consider Smiths favorite character, the butcher. He supplies meat, 
   which contributes to the wellbeing of the customer, even though he does not 
   intend benevolence. He is after his own profit. Let us acknowledge that we 
   have two basic elements for <realistic science> here. First, the butcher is 
   a real character. We can gather data on what and how much he supplies, and 
   what costs he incurs, and how much profit he makes. To this extent, it is 
   empirically anchored, and hence is realistic. Secondly, the idea that he 
   does it for profit is a theory that explains observed behavior, and ascribes 
   meaning to his observed/observable action. 
   Further, the idea that he does not intend the benefit makes it meaningful in 
   another 
   dimension: he does not dictate the market to make it beneficial. The meaning 
   makes it scientific. Thus we have data, and we have an analytical concept 
   that explains the data meaningfully. I submit that this (data endowed with 
   meaning) is what we wish to get in <realistic science> of the economy. And 
   we got it here. 
      However, I see a big omission here. What about the customer? Suppose that 
   the baker is the customer of the butchers meat. Is the benefit of meat 
   unintended also by the customer? I will insist that the customer not only 
   intends to get the benefit, but actually looks for the supplier and pays for 
   it. That is, the story is only half told. It is intended by one side, but 
   not by the other side. Most critically, the buyer pays. I want to argue that 
   Smiths story lacks completeness. 
 
   I do not see completeness as an abstract standard, but just a pragmatic 
   approach in view of the aftermath of incompleteness. The thesis is that an 
   incomplete story developed into something that either lost the data in its 
   quest for meaning, or lost the meaning in its hunt for data. I  do not wish 
   to  recount  the  Marshall-Walras  debate  over partial versus general 
   equilibrium models as an abstract argument, but just show what happened to 
   an incomplete story. 
      I hope I have not set up a suspicious standard of realism that may not be 
   granted visa  by the gatekeepers.  I do not wish to talk about any new 
   standards of empirical relevance (data), and about rational explanation 
   (meaning), because the literature is rich in this regard and needs no great 
   help from me. My emphasis is on descriptive completeness of exchange. We can 
   have some fun trying to tell half a story and see how entertaining and 
   informative it becomes, in contrast to a full story. 
      And my point of arrival is the same each time: it is easy to complete the 
   story by bringing in the baker and his intentions, and we can have a fully 
   realistic feast (of bread and meat) without eating an imaginary meal. I 
   suspect that great many of us are hungry for a real meal rather than an 
   imaginary one. Hunger is the great motivator behind the hunting instincts of 
   the cat and the mouse. Half a story does not satisfy this hunger, unless the 
   audience is already sleeping. Luckily, a cat like Pat is awake. I do not 
   think that being awake is being stray, but those who are sleeping need not 
   worry about the difference. 
        I wish to start nine times over from the same point, thus running 
   without going away. By the way, I think the thread title should henceforth 
   become: Nine lives of unintended consequences. What is the convention in 
   this regard? 
 
   Now, let us not run out of team: join the chase for the cheese please, and 
   live nine-times over. 
   Mohammad Gani