Re: 
 
>Once again Ransom is on the ball.  I could not have expressed or 
emphasized 
>the point better.  The history of economics is indeed socialal 
constructed; 
>it does not write itself. 
> 
>Warren Samuels 
> 
>>The fact that the task has no 'right answers' is one reason it is' 
>>worth doing -- a provocative way to inspire interest in the history 
>>of economic thought. 
>> 
>>Greg Ransom 
>>Dept. of Philosophy 
>>UC-Riverside 
>> 
 
 
But intellectual family tree questions do have "wrong answers": 
 
 
Adam Smith --> James Fallows 
 
 
Friedrich von Hayek --> John Kenneth Galbraith 
 
 
Karl Marx     ) 
              ) 
              )--> Milton Friedman 
              ) 
Friedrich List) 
 
 
If the history of economics does not in some sense "write itself", then why 
do we all laugh at the three family trees above? 
 
Brad De Long