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It is true that the author is dead, and all we have is the text. But we do 
have all of the text. 
 
I am in the process of taking my students through a chapter in Ecklund and 
Hebert dealing with the emergence of consideration of monopolistic and 
imperfect competition in the 1930s.  It contains no mention of Mrs. 
Robinson's attachment to Marx and socialism, or of the use of the 
monopolistic competition model to discredit "capitalism" and prove that 
the Marxian version of the world was the correct version.  It contains no 
mention of the potency of this in the midst of the depression of the 
1930s, when free enterprise capitalism seemed to be bested by fascist 
systems in Italy, Germany, and, even the Soviet Union.  Without this 
background how can anyone understand the importance of Coase's "The Nature 
of the Firm" (1937), which is burdened with references to Robinson and 
Kaldor; or the nature of the Chicago School which, Stigler tells us, 
(MEMOIRS OF AN UNREGULATE ECONOMIST, pp. 75-80) was deeply rooted in 
Coase's view of the world. 
 
Ecklund and Hebert use the Robinson text, but not the whole text, because 
there is plenty of Robinsonian text that is explicitly Marxist.   
 
The New Institutionalism is an answer to a question posed by socialists in 
very telling circumstances.  Without the question, the answer given by 
Ecklund and Hebert is anodyne, at the very least.  Without the question 
the importance of the Mount Pelerin Society is incomprehensible. 
 
The fact that the author is dead, and there is only the text, is not an 
excuse to give up on the attempt at objective understanding.  It is a 
reminder of the humility with which the subject of intellectual history is 
to be addressed. 
 
Robin Neill 
 
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