History of economic thought

THIS study deals with the development of systematic economic ideas. It is not, however, intended as an inven tory of the noteworthy contributions to economic dis course recorded throughout history. Nor, for that matter, does it purport to deal exhaustively with the thought of those writers whose works are discussed. Its objective is at once more limited and more ambitious: to inspect the properties of four distinct modes of economic reasoning developed in the past two centuries by considering the writings of representative contributors to these traditions.

Despite its ruthless selectivity, this procedure has much to recommend it. Each of the intellectual systems to be examined- ie, those of classical, Marxian, neo-classical, and Keynesian thought - yield different insights into the nature of the economic universe and into the ways in which men can most effectively come to grips with it. The ideas they contain have long outlived their authors and have been adapted to deal with problems quite different from the ones which first prompted their formulation. Investigation of the properties of the major theoretical systems devised in the past thus has a perpetual relevance. Few things on this earth approach immortality so closely as a logically taut set of economic ideas.