Tag Archives: History of Economics

Setting the record straight.AeonThe real Adam Smith Paul Sagar | lecturer in political theory in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London

Gavin Kennedy's new book on Adam Smith setting the record straight is now available.Adam Smith's Lost Legacy An Authentic Adam Smith Gavin Kennedy | Professor Emeritus, Heriot Watt University

History of economics.Michael HudsonOn Simon Patten Trey Popp

Weekend reading. Michael Emmett Brady, California State University, published in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) he takes giant steps to demolishing Samuelson’s myth. Michael Emmett Brady writes the most significant contribution to the invsisible-hand debate since 1948: “Who Taught Paul Samuelson the Myth of the “Invisible Hand” at the University of Chicago? The most likely answer is Jacob Viner or fellow student George Stigler” .  Its author takes the invisible-hand debate...

History lesson. Trading one dogmatism for another?Michael Roberts BlogThe economics of Luther or Munzer?Michael Roberts

Infographic and short summary of the history of money and credit.Visual CapitalistA Timeline of Every Major Disruption in PaymentsJeff Desjardins

Interesting article and a relatively short read. Here is the conclusion. Smith’s lesson here has broader applicability. An oligarchic democracy may be worse for the poor than an arbitrary government. A state, relatively autonomous from the elite, may care more about the “general interest” than an ostensibly democratic government that is in reality the government of the rich. Smith highlights, I think, in both his discussion of social cleavage in interests when it comes to colonies and in...

I take long-term historical studies like this is a large grain of salt, for lack of homogeneity and the difficulty in obtaining reliable data, for example, but it is interesting to look at anyway with caveats.What is probably most interesting about it now is that the Bank of England is apparently looking at this. Conclusion On aggregate, then, the past 30-odd years more than hold their own in the ranks of historically significant rate depressions. But the trend fall seen over this period...

Fun if you are interested in Joan Robinson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Cambridge of the Twenties, and enjoy personal anecdotes. Incidentally, I am surprised and not surprised that Joan Robinson confessed to not understand the first propositions of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I am not surprised in that they sound like metaphysical statements and many if not most readers are at least initially confused by this appearance.  I am surprised, however, than Robinson did not...

Short summary of Mike Perry's new book, which itself is a wide-ranging summary of liberal social, political and economic history, a treatment of neoliberalism, and recommendations for getting out of the box that the ruling elite has constructed to contain alternatives to the power structure.Progress in Political EconomyMorality and Power: On Ethics, Economics and Public PolicyMike Berry