==================== HES POSTING ====================== Various HES editorials from last fall have spawned a long series of E-mail comments on different kinds of histories, the legitimate scope of historical inquiry, and the proper place of the history and the historians of economics. The ongoing debate has been most instructive, even beyond revealing some of the beliefs and prejudices of the participants. Besides, the territorial fencing and the emphasis on classifications with subtle overtones of mine-is-better-than-yours has been most amusing. Still, it seems to me that the whole debate has really skirted the most fundamental question at hand. Economics teaches us that behavior depends on objectives. Hence, the questions that we ask must determine our methods and our approach to the issues. This is just as true of the History of Economics as it is of Economics itself. Accordingly, the fundamental question is: What do we hope to gain by studying the history of economics in the first place? Schumpeter (1954) answered that we hope to become better economists. In the best of all possible worlds a history of economics would be of little use, since whatever is useful from the work of preceding generations would have been incorporated into the current state of the art. But, given our own limits as well as the complexity of real phenomena, the theory that we can manage is imperfect. Hence, we benefit from the study of our intellectual history on several levels. According to Schumpeter we gain: (1) Pedagogical advantages: We cannot fully comprehend the current state of economics if we do not understand how modern theories "embody the achievements and carry the scars of work that has been done in the past under entirely different conditions." (1954, p. 4) (2) New ideas: In Schumpeter's words, a "man's mind must be indeed sluggish if, standing back from the work of his time and beholding the wide mountain ranges of past thought, he does not experience a widening of his own horizon." (1954, p. 5) (3) Insight into the ways of the human mind: Studying the theories and arguments of the past teaches us something about logic and the nature of our own thought processes. A historical perspective teaches us that "scientific habits or rules of procedure are not merely to be judged by logical standards that exists independently of them; they contribute something to, and react back upon, these logical standards themselves." (1954, p. 5) But, Schumpeter also believed in additional benefits that are less easily summarized. As Schumpeter put it, our "performance is, and always was, not only modest but also disorganized." (1954, p. 6) As a result, we can not trust each other to summarize the current state of the art, let alone the state of the past. Hence, those of us who truthfully study our intellectual history are rewarded with "useful if disconcerting lessons"(1954, p. 6) as well as a sense of subtlety and ambiguity otherwise unrealizable. That is, we obtain not only a sense of our own (and each others) innate limitations, but in perceiving these limitations we also lessen their hold on us. Literature surveys of complex issues tend not just to oversimplify, more often than not they flat out misrepresent. Consider, for example, the monetarist controversies. Modern textbook descriptions of monetarism have nothing at all to do with the ideas of most of those who actually did label themselves monetarists. I am not aware of a single textbook that points out that Brunner and Meltzer (who coined the term monetarism) rejected the very IS-LM framework, and that they did indeed believe that money demand was unstable. Such misrepresentations almost seem to be the rule rather than the exception, in the textbooks the actual ideas of writers from Say to Lucas tend to be replaced with more easily digestible fantasies. I have yet to find a single classical economist whose actual ideas, once I read the relevant work, were recognizable from the canonical second and third hand depictions. Most history of thought textbooks remind me of the children's game in which a specific message is whispered from one person to another down a line only to emerge at the end twisted beyond all recognition. Paradoxically, I guess the point is, we each need to study the history of economic thought on our own, because we certainly cannot trust each other to do it for us. Joan Robinson (unfortunately I do not recall the exact reference) once said something to the effect that that in economics you cannot know anything about anything without knowing everything about everything, so therefore in order to say anything about anything one is forced to ignore a great deal. Obviously this also goes for the history of economic thought. Alas, we need to know everything, but we live in a world of intellectual scarcity. So, we must make choices, and hopefully we are rational enough for those choices to be congruent with what we hope to achieve. Even those motivated by nothing but neutral, scholarly, and open-minded curiosity can still produce incompetent and misleading histories of economic thought. At the same time, history denigrated as "Whig" (note that this very label implies a certain advocacy by those who use it) or internally-focused and advocacy-based history can be most useful. As Schumpeter put it: "To investigate facts or to develop tools for doing so is one thing; to evaluate them from some moral or cultural standpoint is, in logic, another thing, and the two need not conflict. Similarly, the advocate of some interest may yet do honest analytic work, and the motive of proving a point for the interest to which he owes allegiance does not in itself prove anything for or against this analytic work: more bluntly, advocacy does not imply lying."(1949, p. 346) A work may be clearly based in advocacy for a given point of view and yet be outstanding, thoughtful, and in its very mission, illuminating, even for those who reject the particular cause endorsed. As an example, let me suggest Gaffney (1994), who sets out to rehabilitate some Georgian ideas long rejected by the mainstream in economics. I believe that most open-minded readers, even those who reject the ideas Gaffney seeks to resuscitate, will find this work highly informative and thought-provoking in a manner that it would not be without its very tone of upholding the cause. My point is simply that different questions call for different approaches. A self-styled apostle of "thick" history of economics once told me that he had no interest whatsoever in the ideas of economics, rather he was interested in how these ideas came to be. So be it. (Even though I do not believe that these questions are really separable). But I am still a bit puzzled as to why he would want to study the history of economics in the first place, if not in order to become a better economist. Of course, if he could convince me that the style of women's hats in the late 18th century was fundamental to classical theories of rent and that understanding this was key to perceiving our own modern biases, then I would be truly grateful. This might well make me a better economist. But, emphatically, that is not his aim. Of course, unlike miserable thin thinkers like myself, the "thick" thinkers do not take positions on economic theories or theorists of the past. Perhaps this is caused by their disinterest in economic theories in the first place. And, if this disinterest protects them from the ignorance and/or incompetence which yields so many nonsense histories of the thin variety, then more power to them. Still, the proof of the pudding and all that, where is the groundbreaking "thick" stuff that will make me a better economist. REFERENCES: Gaffney, Mason. 1994. "Neo-Classical Economics as a Stratagem Against Henry George." In The Corruption of Economics. Edited by M. Gaffney and F. Harrison. London: Shepheard-Walwyn. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1949. "Science and Ideology." American Economic Review 39: 345-359. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. ________________________________________ Petur O. Jonsson Department of Economics and Finance 323 School of Business and Economics Fayetteville State University Fayetteville, NC 28301-4298 Phones: 910-486-1984 (Office) 910-425-0424 (Home) E-Mail: [log in to unmask] ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]