标题: （英文版）经济学思想史-对现代经济学的创建者们的透析 [打印本页] 作者: jianyangtech 时间: 2013-1-13 12:46 标题: （英文版）经济学思想史-对现代经济学的创建者们的透析 History of Economic Thought, what for? Joseph Schumpeter has noted: “Older
authors and older views acquire … an importance … [when] the methods of the
economic research worker are undergoing a revolutionary change.”
1
In a time of
economic crisis, a reflection of the roots of economic theory and methods prevents
us from following the wrong path. Leland Yeager has outlined the responsibility of
the historian of economic thought as follows:
“It is probably more true of economics than of the natural sciences that earlier
discoveries are in danger of being forgotten; maintaining a cumulative growth of
knowledge is more difficult. In the natural sciences, discoveries get embodied not
only into further advances in pure knowledge but also into technology, many of whose
users have a profit and loss incentive to get things straight. The practitioners of eco-nomic technology are largely politicians and political appointees with rather different
incentives. In economics, consequently, we need scholars who specialize in keeping
us aware and able to recognize earlier contributions – and earlier fallacies – when
they surface as supposedly new ideas. By exerting a needed discipline, specialists in
the history of thought can contribute to the cumulative character of economics.”
2