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Societies for the History of Economics

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Subject:
From:
Mason Gaffney <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:03:55 -0400
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Steve Kates relates the sad tale of how certain Australian officials tried
to reclassify HET out of existence. Let me suggest a reason for this
attitude. Self-styled "mainstream" economists fancy themselves at the
"cutting edge" of advanced thinking; then HET people come along and find
that "Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme chose". (Pardon me, my software
doesn't do cedillas or accents circonflex in email.) Or, worse, the cutting
edge is subtracting from human knowledge. So they turn their cutting edges
on us.

Even now the cutting edgers are discovering that the Great Crash is a unique
product of our times and new institutions. Surprise, surprise!  How could
they have foreseen it? How deflating to be told that these things have come
along in about 18-year cycles for several centuries, with theorists
rediscovering the wheel each time.

Mason Gaffney

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