tailieunhanh - History of Economic Analysis part 54

History of Economic Analysis part 54. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | History of economic analysis 492 was independent of its deplorable analytic implementation and capable of being implemented more satisfactorily. This however is precisely what Carey s critics refused to recognize. Most of them were more or less well-trained economists. They had no difficulty in showing that Carey s theory was no good at all. And on the strength of this they condemned his message without making it clear and presumably without being aware of the fact that the essentials of this message were beyond the range of theoretical analysis. A comparison of Carey with the English free traders on the one hand and with List on the other will bring this out still more clearly. The English free traders and List also argued from a comprehensive social and political vision that we may or may not accept both moreover argued from their respective national standpoints both finally advocated policies that suited some group interests better than others. In all these respects there is no difference whatever between the cases of Carey and of either the English free traders or List except of course so far as our own preferences are concerned. But the English free traders implemented their visions and their politics analytically and with success the theorem of comparative costs was a major contribution to our analytic apparatus. This is the reason why they may claim a place in the history of scientific analysis not because of the advocacy of free trade per se. List made no original contribution to the analytic apparatus of economics. But he used pieces of the existing analytic apparatus judiciously and correctly. And this too spells scientific merit. Carey s case differs from both in that he made negative contributions to analysis. And my point is that this was entirely unnecessary either for the analytic implementation of the manner in which he saw American reality and problems or for the formulation of his policies including protection balanced economy and all. If he .