Pat  
  
I must say I did not read the passage from Lionel Robbins   
  
[http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2005-June/003087.html ]  
  
the same way as you seem to have. To me Robbins seemed to be saying that there is utility
for economists in studying the early economists because of what they can teach us about
how to deal with contemporary issues. That is what I take from his statement that "I do
not think that our knowledge is so far advanced as to justify us in writing off as
superseded the proposition of all but our immediate contemporaries."
  
The notion that the history of economics is no more than a history of error is a statement
I do not accept nor does Robbins. We can either think of all past economics as a litany of
superseded error or it is something else. Is all that we as economists know that thin
patina of contemporary theory or is there a stock of bygone doctrine that can be mined and
would be useful for economists to have available when some problem they are dealing with
triggers a responsive chord of recognition.
  
Those who believe that HET is the history of error believe there is nothing worth looking
for in terms of dealing with existing economic problems. Past theories are just a bunch of
worthless old relics, antique ideas whose only interest is in their quaintness. Reading
such theory is then like looking at a Model "T". It is interesting as a museum piece but
there is nothing there from which to learn.
  
Me, I think different. Schumpeter reports in his History of Economic Analysis (p 835) that
in regard to his own work Marshall had said that "it's all in Adam Smith." Well, it's not
really all in Adam Smith, but there are some things in the Wealth of Nations you will not
find in any modern text and these things are lost if you don't know enough to look.
  
A good economist steeped in modern thought will be able to separate the dross from the
gold. But without some grounding in HET, that modern economist will not know enough even
to look for what might actually be found.
  
Steve Kates