Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Chapter 10 - Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 German Economics as Development Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to World War II
- Chapter 2 The Role of the State in Economic Growth
- Chapter 3 A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626– 1692)
- Chapter 4 Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth (with Arno Daastøl)
- Chapter 5 Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717– 1771): The Life and Times of an Economist Adventurer
- Chapter 6 Jacob Bielfeld's “On the Decline of States” (1760) and Its Relevance for Today
- Chapter 7 Raw Materials in the History of Economic Policy; or, Why List (the Protectionist) and Cobden (the Free Trader) Both Agreed on Free Trade in Corn
- Chapter 8 Compensation Mechanisms and Targeted Economic Growth: Lessons from the History of Economic Policy
- Chapter 9 Karl Bücher and the Geographical Dimensions of Techno-Economic Change: Production-Based Economic Theory and the Stages of Economic Development
- Chapter 10 Austrian Economics and the Other Canon: The Austrians between the Activistic-Idealistic and the Passivistic-Materialistic Traditions of Economics
- Chapter 11 Nietzsche and the German Historical School of Economics (with Sophus A. Reinert)
- Chapter 12 Creative Destruction in Economics: Nietzsche, Sombart, Schumpeter (with Hugo Reinert)
- Chapter 13 Schumpeter in the Context of Two Canons of Economic Thought
- Chapter 14 The Role of Technology in the Creation of Rich and Poor Nations: Underdevelopment in a Schumpeterian System
- Chapter 15 Towards an Austro–German Theory of Uneven Economic Development? A Plea for Theorising by Inclusion
- Chapter 16 The Qualitative Shift in European Integration: Towards Permanent Wage Pressures and a ‘Latin-Americanization’ of Europe? (with Rainer Kattel)
- Chapter 17 Primitivization of the EU Periphery: The Loss of Relevant Knowledge
- Chapter 18 Mechanisms of Financial Crises in Growth and Collapse: Hammurabi, Schumpeter, Perez, and Minsky
- Chapter 19 Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and Back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Price Essay: “Why Is It That Economics So Far Has Gained So Few Advantages from Physics and Mathematics?”
- Chapter 20 Werner Sombart (1863– 1941) and the Swan Song of German Economics
- Index
Summary
Typologies of Economic Theory and the Two Canons
We have recently argued that when focusing on very long-term longitudinal trends in economics, two ideal types of economic theory appear to have co-existed parallel over an extended period of time. These ideal types can be seen as constituting two separate filiations – to use Schumpeter's term – and they come into occasional methodological clashes. Werner Sombart fittingly calls the first tradition activistic-idealistic, a tradition born with the Renaissance. The second type of economic theory he calls passivistic-materialistic, a tradition having its origins with Mandeville and Adam Smith and solidifying as the ‘a-priori method’ with David Ricardo. The purpose of this paper is to outline the characteristics of the two traditions – the tradition behind today's mainstream and ‘The Other Canon’ – and to discuss the position of Austrian economics in this context.
In most sciences, periodical and radical gestalt-switches terminate old theoretical trajectories and initiate new ones. In a Kuhnian paradigm shift the scientific world moves from a situation when everybody knows that the world is flat, to a new understanding when everybody knows that the world is round. This happens in a relatively short time. Lakatos’ idea of ‘degenerating scientific research programmes’ that gradually shift to ‘progressive’ ones convey a similar idea. In this respect economics is different. In economics the theory that the world is flat has been living together with the theory that the world is round for centuries. We describe this apparent lack of paradigm shifts in economics by the co-existence of these two long-term parallel filiations, where weight and influence periodically tilt back and forth between two alternative Weltanschauungen.
Today evolutionary economics – based on a tradition founded by the Austrian Joseph Alois Schumpeter – represent the most important challenge to the mainstream. However, evolutionary economics has, in our view, so far had an unnecessarily limited scope. This tradition now focuses relatively narrowly on innovations, including neither Schumpeter's own interest in financial matters, nor addressing to any extent the broader issues of uneven economic growth and employment on a world level which are, at their origin, intimately tied to Schumpeterian mechanisms. And, by bringing simple ‘Schumpeterian’ variables into mainstream equilibrium models, his message is being domesticated and made innocuous. As in the case of Keynes, the mainstream again shows a great ability to usurp, absorb, and subdue threatening alternative theories.
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- The Visionary Realism of German EconomicsFrom the Thirty Years’ War to the Cold War, pp. 321 - 364Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019