Brad and Gabriel:

I have not had the chance to look into Rodgers's book, but certainly will. For almost 20 years my work has read the history of recent economics to mean that the microfoundations approach to macroeconomics faces serious difficulties. In consequence of this impasse, there has been a "fracturing" within economics as well. As others have pointed out, though, most economists still think of microeconomics as prior, and have done so for very long time. Because of this long-time focus, in my view and broadly speaking, to be sure, macroeconomics hasn't developed in ways that are compelling (I'm moving away from history now, but it does help to explain why people are seeking for alternatives). While most everyone was thinking about microeconomics alone or as being constitutive, the macroeconomy -- which was arguably developing and changing apace -- was left underanalyzed. It's good to hear that there is an intellectual history -- Rodgers's -- which puts some of these theoretical trends in a broader social perspective.

Abu

On Aug 30, 2011, at 1:25 PM, Brad Bateman wrote:

Dear Gabriel,

One excellent source for the history that you are looking for is Daniel Rodgers's latest book, Age of Fracture (2011). The book is an intellectual history of American society since the 1960s. I suggest the whole book to get Rodgers's argument in full persepective, but chapter two, "The Rediscovery of the Market" deals directly with the larger cultural influences that created the space in which the mainstream of the discipline turned away from macroeconomics and toward microeconomics. This is some of the best history of economics I have read recently.

Brad
Bradley W. Bateman
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