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Bruce Caldwell's editorial contains, in my opinion, some very interesting
points. I feel that ancient economists did do economics when or by doing
history of economics: indeed, I think that it could be said, without much
loss of accuracy, that doing economics was not very different from doing
the
history of economics (something of this kind goes also for philosophy:
philosophy is the history of philosophy). As I was reading Caldwell's
editorial, Marx's case was came to my mind, though many others might also
serve as examples. This raises a question: why have economics and its
history fallen apart from each other?
I do not know whether a SSK neoclassically-oriented model can explain why
historians of economics have not adopted a self-referential view; probably
because self-referentiality would not only be somewhat dull, but also
sterile. After all, what do we study history of economics for? I think that
a right answer to this question should stress that we do not study what our
forerunners said in order to know just what they said, but in order to know
how things are. I am not sceptic, and I think that the economic classics
can
help us to get a better understanding of economic reality; is this not the
reason why we call them "classics"? No doubt you can get many useful
insights by studying sociological aspects of an influential community of
economists, such as the English Classics or the Austrians, but thinking is
an individual task and must be performed by individual brains. I do not
know
if Caldwell's conjecture about the move from "great economist" to "great
economist" can be proved to be true or false; what I do know is that if a
thinker has seen something true about economic facts, we can always turn to
her or him to learn what she or he saw.
To a certain extent, economic theorists are not much better off than us
as far as the connection with reality is concerned. I often hear complains
about this not only from the laymen, but also from other colleagues who,
using Caldwell's expression, "are doing economics" (or that which the
profession regards today as economics -this is neither a fact nor a
conjecture, but a feeling). However, the complaint that economics is
increasingly becoming a branch of applied mathematics is also heard
sometimes among the profession - this second complaint being closely
related
to the previous one. When somebody asks me what economic methodology has to
contribute to economic discussion, I usually point to the problem of
realism
of assumptions (with not completely unsatisfactory results). Have we given
a
satisfactory answer to this problem?, is it not, after all, a key question
in modern macroeconomic theorizing? just think of neo-keynesianism,
checking
the rational expectations hypothesis (or assumption?), etc.
The complaints about the relation between theory and fact show a certain
dissatisfaction with the way economics is being built today; maybe we can
provide the profession with insights and ideas from those economists who
saw
true things, that is, the classics. If we say things that have some element
of truth, we would not be forced to persuade others that what we are doing
is relevant. Maybe we should try not to explain ourselves, but to reflect
upon ourselves and take steps to view in a fresh way the natural connection
between economics and its history so prominent in the classics.
Kepa M Ormazabal
Department of Economic Theory
University of the Basque Country
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