Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T13:28:08.696Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analysis and Vision in Economic Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Peter J. Boettke
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Robert Heilbroner (1990) challenges us to re-examine our preconceptions about the development of economic analysis in the twentieth century. John Maynard Keynes (1951, p. 141) once said, in a discussion concerning Alfred Marshall, that the “master economist…must study the present in light of the past for the purposes of the future,” and in this regard Heilbroner's essay is the work of a historian of economics who commands our attention and respect. The purpose of his essay “is to inquire into the successes and failures of economic thought in anticipating the march of actual events” (Heilbroner 1990, p. 1097). The failures, Heilbroner points out, considerably outweigh the successes. But, he conjectures, even in those cases of success, the success is not due to superior analysis. Rather, “the success of the farsighted seem accounted for more by their prescient ‘visions’ than by their superior analyses” (ibid., p. 1098).

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , Spring 1992 , pp. 84 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergson, A. 1948. “Socialist Economics,” in A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Howard, Ellis, ed., Blakiston Company, Philidelphia, 412–48.Google Scholar
Boettke, P. 1990. The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: The Formative Years, 1918–1928, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boettke, P. 1990. “The Theory of Spontaneous Order and Cultural Evolution in the Social Theory of F.A. Hayek,” Cultural Dynamics, 3, no. 1, 62–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, J. and Wagner, R. 1977. Democracy in Deficit, Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 1953. Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H. 1960. Truth and Method. Crossroads Publishing, New York, 1985.Google Scholar
Garrison, R. 1985. “Intertemporal Coordination and the Invisible Hand: An Austrian Perspective on the Keynesian Vision,” History of Political Economy, 17, no. 2, Summer, 309–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, S. and Stiglitz, J. 1976. “Information and Competitive Price Systems,” American Economic Review, 66, no. 2, 05, 246–53.Google Scholar
Grossman, S. 1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets,” American Economic Review, 70, no. 3, 06, 393–408.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1931. “Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J. M. Keynes,” Economica, 08, 270–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1940. “Socialist Calculation: The Competitive Solution,” Economica, 05, 125–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1948. Individualism and Economic Order, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1978. New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1979. A Tiger by the Tail, Cato Institute, Washington.Google Scholar
Hayek, F. A. 1988. The Fatal Conceit, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilbroner, R. 1990. “Analysis and Vision in the History of Modern Economic Thought,” Journal of Economic Literature, 28, no. 3, 09, 1097–1114.Google Scholar
Hicks, J. 1967. “The Hayek Story,” in Critical Essays in Monetary Theory, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 203–15.Google Scholar
High, J. 1990. Maximizing, Action and Market Adjustment, Philosophia Verlag, Munich.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. 1973. Competition and Entrepreneurship, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1936. The General Theory, Harcourt, Brace and Javanovich, New York.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1951. Essays in Biography, Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1980. Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, 27, Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Lange, O. 1937. On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Kelley, New York, 1970.Google Scholar
Lavoie, D. 1985. Rivalry and Central Planning, Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Lavoie, D. 1985. National Economic Planning, Ballinger Publishing, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Lerner, A. 1944. The Economics of Control, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Levy, D. 1990. “The Bias in Centrally Planned Prices,” Public Choice, 67, no. 3, 12, 213–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mises, L. 1922. Socialism, Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1981.Google Scholar
O'Driscoll, G. 1977. Economics as a Coordination Problem, Sheed, , Andrews, and McMeel, , Kansas City.Google Scholar
Polanyi, M. 1962. Personal Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Prychitko, D. 1991. Marxism and Workers' Self-Management: The Essential Tension, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. 1954. History of Economic Analysis, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sah, R. K. and Stiglitz, J. 1985. “Human Fallibility and Economic Organization,” American Economic Review, 75, no. 2, 05, 292–97.Google Scholar
Sah, R. K. 1986. “The Architecture of Economic Systems,” American Economic Review, 76, no. 4, 09, 716–27.Google Scholar
Skousen, M. 1990. The Structure of Production, New York University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sowell, T. 1987. A Conflict of Visions, Morrow, New York.Google Scholar
Thomsen, E. 1991. Prices and Knowledge, Routledge, London.Google Scholar