ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Economics in Blueprints: The Rivalry of Anticipations
Author: Ananyin Oleg
The emergence of economic science is typically assessed retrospectively, i.e. as a process tending to come up to some “classical situation”, to use Schumpeter’s term (1954). Otherwise very different works by Marx (1859), Letwin (1963), Groenewegen (2002), Aspromourgos (1996), etc. are representative of this view. Such an approach is quite appropriate for tracing back the origins of the phenomenon taken for a benchmark, for identifying its roots and following the logic of its maturing. It does not catch, however, the context within which a new phenomenon appears and takes its shape. The paper departs from the assumption that the emergence of a new phenomenon occurs usually in bifurcation points, i.e. under conditions when the future is not predetermined, and the choice of development path depends on incident factors, while subsequent steps tend to become path-dependent. In such cases the genesis of a new phenomenon is a matter of selection from available options, of which the rejected ones are of no less importance than the option that happened to be accomplished. It is argued in the paper that the genesis of the economic science belongs precisely to this kind of scenarios. To support this claim a set of blueprints of the emerging economic science are identified and considered. Among them James Steuart’s rationalized version of earlier empirical and descriptive tradition rooted in mercantilist economic reasoning; empirical and statistical project of William Petty; John Law’s attempt of social engineering; David Hume’s perspective of economic philosophy; and abstract theoretical project of Richard Cantillon. Although not all of these projects were consciously intended to culminate in a new branch of science, and there was no explicit Methodenstreit among their authors, these blueprints served as eventual paradigms for those who succeeded in establishing economics as a new science. Cantillon’s attitudes to Petty and Law, Smith’s rejection of ‘political arithmetic’, as well as his ignorance of James Steuart are clear symptoms of implicit rivalries accompanying the birth of economics. References Marx, K. (1987/1859). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In: Marx, K. and Engels, F. Collected Works. Moscow: Progress. Vol. 29. Aspromourgos, T. (2000/1996). On the Origins of Classical Economics: Distribution and Value from Petty to Adam Smith. L.: Routledge. Groenewegen, P. (2002). Eighteenth Century Economics. L.: Routledge. Letwin, W. (2003/1963). The Origins of Scientific Economics. English Economic Thought 1660-1776. L. and NY: Routledge. (Reprint ed.). Schumpeter, J.A. (1954). History of Economic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press
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