Dear Prabhu,  
  
Thank you for that excellent discussion of   
reductionism, I agree totally about the   
usefulness of reductionism, especially if we are   
willing to recognize the distance between the   
reductionist theory and the reality it   
represents, a distance that is always present.   
That is, it is useful to the degree that one does   
not take it too seriously, to the degree that it   
is not dogmatized. As soon as one dogmatizes the   
theory, it ceases to have utility, since every   
reductionism necessarily involves a distortion of   
the concrete reality. In the case of marriage,   
for example, one can (and must) discuss it under   
the terms of a contract for certain purposes, but   
this is useful so long as one does not mean to   
exhaust the relationship in contractual terms.  
  
Using a reductionist approach, Ricardo can come   
up with the highly useful and enlightening theory   
of Comparative Advantage. And there can be no   
doubt that the theory is "true," theoretically.   
But CA cannot be dogmatized so as to divorce it   
from its social context. And indeed, Ricardo did   
not dogmatize it, but surrounded it with a number   
of implicit and explicit assumptions, assumptions   
which can be critically examined and practically   
applied. Further, (and here I am indebted to the   
analysis of Prof. Asso), the entire classical and   
neoclassical tradition is not unambiguous on this   
question, even among free trade's most ardent   
supporters. The best in the profession did not   
divorce CA from its concrete instances and social   
context. Yet now the theory is dogmatized so that   
any question about the actual context of a trade,   
any question about trade with slave economies of   
trade at a chronic deficit for example, are met   
with stony silence as questions beyond the pale,   
as questions heterodox. Which brings us to the   
question of the importance of history. You state,  
  
  
>Critical defenders of the profession (among whom I certainly number  
>myself - and perhaps you do too?) will always draw attention to the  
>distance between aspiration (intersection with reality) and the current  
>or historical state of the profession (those instances where it fails to  
>intersect with reality).  
>  
>This raises the question of the criteria we use to evaluate the history  
>of economics.  Are we to evaluate our history from the viewpoint of the  
>current orthodoxies of our profession?  Or from a wider, human,  
>viewpoint?  
  
This, I think, gets to the central issues. In   
most textbooks, the economic theories are   
presented as pure received truth; orthodoxy   
becomes mere dogma. I think the study of history   
is the antidote to this dogmatizing tendency, and   
that he who does not know the history of an idea,   
does not really know the idea. Without history,   
the present moment (and its received dogmas)   
tends to displace every other moment and every   
other point of view. I would contend that no   
human idea can be understood apart from the   
history that created it. It is not that there   
exist no real truths, valid for all times and   
places, but that even when dealing with these   
truths, they are always expressed in human   
language, a cultural artifact. A human expression   
of the truth is always proximate, not absolute,   
at least in any non-trivial case. When the   
University of Chicago  in 1972 dropped history as   
a required study for graduate economics students,   
they essentially dropped the serious study of   
economics and replaced it with a training program   
for practitioners of the received doctrines, a   
practice conducted without a full understanding.   
I think it is the major task of economic   
historians (and of HES) to restore economics to   
its proper place as an humane science, one that   
cannot be divorced from the history and scientists who formed the science.  
  
John C. Medaille