by From Assad Zaman Based on ideas derived from my study of the methodology of Polanyi’s Great Transformation, I have come to the conclusion that history and social theories are entangled — they co-evolve in time. We cannot understand social theories (like economics) outside the historical context, just as we cannot understand history without understanding the social theories in use by different groups to try to interpret events in ways that would lead to policy actions in their favor. It is only in context of the struggle of groups with competing interests to impose favorable interpretations upon historical events that we can understand the emergence of theories like comparative advantage. We cannot understand them from the standard “scientific” point-of-view based on the binary of True/False. This dominant mode of understanding will leave us forever confused as to why theories so dramatically at variance with facts can come to dominate, and be widely taught and believed by people who are, by all appearances, perfectly intelligent.
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from Assad Zaman
Based on ideas derived from my study of the methodology of Polanyi’s Great Transformation, I have come to the conclusion that history and social theories are entangled — they co-evolve in time. We cannot understand social theories (like economics) outside the historical context, just as we cannot understand history without understanding the social theories in use by different groups to try to interpret events in ways that would lead to policy actions in their favor. It is only in context of the struggle of groups with competing interests to impose favorable interpretations upon historical events that we can understand the emergence of theories like comparative advantage. We cannot understand them from the standard “scientific” point-of-view based on the binary of True/False. This dominant mode of understanding will leave us forever confused as to why theories so dramatically at variance with facts can come to dominate, and be widely taught and believed by people who are, by all appearances, perfectly intelligent.