SHOE Archives

Societies for the History of Economics

SHOE@YORKU.CA

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Condense Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
[log in to unmask] (John C. Medaille)
Date:
Sun Nov 19 10:21:33 2006
In-Reply-To:
Message-ID:
References:
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (22 lines)
Mason Gaffney wrote:  
>So, I suppose what happened in Japan in the 1930's was wiping out the memory  
>of the Meiji finance system. Orwell explained how this happens everywhere.  
>The mind-bending power of the establishment is, well, mind-bending. Thank  
>goodness for historians of economic thought to help check this tendency.  
  
  
Alas, how many economists are really familiar   
with the history of their discipline? The present   
moment arrives for them as a given, even as an   
immutable given, and the past, when it is viewed   
at all, is viewed through the lens of the   
present. This is a failure, since all economic   
data is historical and all economic systems are   
cultural artifacts. In my classes, I insist on an   
historical foundation for all study; the best   
argument that things can be otherwise is the fact   
that they have been otherwise, and the best way   
to understand the present moment is to understand the past that formed it.  
  
John C. Medaille  

ATOM RSS1 RSS2