1st Edition

The Uses and Abuses of Economics Contentious Essays on History and Method

By Terence Hutchison Copyright 1994
    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    328 Pages
    by Routledge

    Terence Hutchison has made a unique contribution to debates in the history of economic thought and in economic methodology. The material collected here - much of which is appearing for the first time - includes some of the most significant and provocative parts of this contribution. Working from the principle that an idea that offends no one is not worth entertaining, the essays selected here offer a major reinterpretation of what has been called `the Smithian Revolution', and especially of Ricardo, plus a re-assessment of subjectivism and the methodology of the Austrian school.

    Part 1 Progress and Regress in Political Economy; Chapter 1 From William Petty to Adam Smith and the English Classicals; Chapter 2 Jeremy Bentham as an Economist; Chapter 3 James Mill and Ricardian Economics; Chapter 4 On The Interpretation and Misinterpretation of Economic Literature; Chapter 5 ‘Ricardian Politics’; Chapter 6 The Politics and Philosophy in Jevons’s Political Economy; Chapter 7 The Jevonian Revolution and Economic Policy in Britain; Chapter 8 From ‘Dismal Science’ to ‘Positive Economics’; Part 2 Subjectivism, Methods and AIMs; Chapter 9 Notes Towards the Identification and History of ‘Subjectivism’ in Economic Theory; Chapter 10 Hayek, Mises and the Methodological Contradictions of ‘Modern Austrian’ Economics; Chapter 11 A Methodological Crisis?; Chapter 12 The Wisdom of Jacob Viner; Chapter 13 The Uses and Abuses of Academic Economics;

    Biography

    Terence Hutchison