Under-Appreciated Economists
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (CST)
- Chair: David Levy, George Mason University
Spatiality and Exploratory Data Analysis in the Theorizing of Routledge Vining: Rules of the Game and the Gaming of Rules
Abstract
In his 1959 magnum opus, Gerard Debreu writes:"[A] Commodity is a good or a service completely specified physically, temporally, and
spatially. [T]he full generality of the concept of commodity, ... should always be kept in
mind. [B]y focusing attention on changes of locations one obtains, as another particular
case of the same general theory, a theory of location, transportation, international trade
and exchange. The interpretation of the results in those terms will be left to the reader,
since it offers no difficulty once the definition of a commodity has been grasped."
In this talk, and the paper which is to follow it, the author reads this 1959 conceit through
Rutledge Vining’s 1956 UNESCO “review and interpretation of research on economics in the
United States of America.” He sights Vining’s review, as well as his earlier neglected papers on
the spatial dimension in economic theory, as pioneering for the subject of regional economics in
so far as it has taken shape in the response of mainstream trade and development theory to the
erasure of economic geography from mainstream Walrasian economic theory. The author relies
on this sighting to throw light on Vining’s perspective regarding economic theorizing as this
viewpoint manifested itself especially, though not exclusively, in his controversy with Tjalling
Koopmans on theory and measurement, and more specifically, on the sequencing of data analysis
and conceptual formalization.
Harriet Martineau and Hypothesis Discovery
Abstract
Harriet Martineau’s travel to America constituted a form of hypothesis discovery, onethat had an impact on the economics of her time. Her novel about slavery (1834) in
her Illustrations of Political Economy offers no suggestion that slaves would be sexually
used; she discovered this usage in America during her travels. Even though her writings
were extremely successful during her lifetime, today only specialists know of
Martineau’s work, and economists have downplayed her originality and sophistication.
Both her subject matter and her method of collecting information via travel proved
controversial from the beginning of her career. Perhaps for these reasons, Martineau
disappeared from the scholarly landscape for close to a century after her death. As
eugenic thought and racism emerged and flourished among social scientists,
Martineau’s important work was forgotten, and scholars lost the ability to appreciate her
contributions. At least within economics, her work was neglected and eventually fell into
near oblivion. It is now time to reevaluate and appreciate her important contributions.
William Thompson and the Anticipation of Marx's Historical Materialism
Abstract
Marx and Engels tended to dismiss William Thompson as a utopian. They asserted that like other early socialists he anticipated a full change in the mode of production simply from the announcement of his version of a cooperative system. But such a position completely missed Thompson’s strong materialist position. Following Robert Owen, he saw the Industrial Revolution as creating a deep shift in the possibilities of production. The new technologies opened a world of superabundance. According to Thompson, these fundamental material changes resolved Bentham’s assertion that equality must be sacrificed to security.JEL Classifications
- B3 - History of Economic Thought: Individuals
- J7 - Labor Discrimination