Talk:History of economic thought/Draft

Article Checklist for "History of economic thought/Draft"

Workgroup category or categories	Economics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:12, 22 September 2007 (CDT)Larry Sanger 23:23, 9 April 2007 (CDT); JPRC 13:37, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Conversion to History of Economic thought

Having eliminated material that is irrelevant to the new subject heading, I propose to develop the opening section to cover changes of scope and methodology, and make major changes elsewhere, referring to the introduction of economic statistics and the development of inductive methodologies. I propose also to say much more about Keynesianism, monetarism and welfare economics. Any other suggestions?

Nick Gardner 02:38, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

Revised opening paragraph

I have tried to avoid introducing too much economic terminology at this stage, preferring to concentrate upon the development of ideas. The reader is soon enough introduced to terms such as classical economics, Keynesian revolution etc, and there is a danger of going on too long and losing the reader's attention.

Does anyone disagree?

Nick Gardner 05:13, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

Is that right about Ricardo?

I was surprised to read that Ricardo predicted a steady state of universal misery

Can someone, more familiar than I am with Ricardo's work, please advise me whether this is accurate - and if it is, whether it is central enough to his contribution to warrant inclusion here.

Nick Gardner 05:19, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

Title

I've moved the article to history of modern economic thought from history of economic thought, modern. This is, I think, a much clearer and more felicitous phraseology--and it's consistent with our policy, moreover. --Larry Sanger 10:09, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

Massive improvements

This is actually beginning to look like a respectable encyclopedia article!--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:32, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

Thank you.

But having looked at it with an editorial, eye, I am sorry to say that I think further massive improvements will be needed before it could lay claim to acceptability, let alone respectability.

I will try to repair its omissions regarding, for example, general equilibrium, the circular flow of income and the methodological novelties in Keynesianism and monetarism. And I will consider adding references to some more recent developments such as increasing returns to scale.

This will take some time unless I get help!

Nick Gardner 02:00, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Change of Title

The change of title is, I suggest, a mistake. Very few readers would consider eighteenth century thinking to be modern. The prominence given in the article to preclassical economics also seems to be misplaced. The material in that article, although of considerable academic interest, has little bearing upon subsequent developments.

I suggest moving the new opening sentence to a position immediately following the previous opening sentence and returning to the original title.

Nick Gardner 00:46, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I think I agree about the title: it is misleading. The old pages have to be deleted before the article can be moved there. Try your new opening, we can see how it looks. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 04:23, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I have re-worded the opening sentence. I leave to you the task of restoring the original title. OK? Nick Gardner 05:54, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Please don't mind me.  :-) --Larry Sanger 09:11, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, the renaming was done by you and Richard Jensen, but I think we need to have some agreement before renaming articles:-) --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 09:20, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

More history!

I've just noticed that there is a great deal more meticulously recorded history of thought in articles titled Neoclassical Schools and The Lausanne School. There is a good deal of overlapping (for example Walras is in all three). Also there is a plethora of links to unwritten articles on similar topics.

I am at a loss to know how to handle this. Should we retain all of it as it stands? Or should it all be integrated, somehow?

Looking further at the editing problem, I am having difficulty with the present catalogue-type presentation. I should much prefer to present the material as a readable dialogue, very briefly bringing out the clashes of ideas and the development of consensuses. But that would mean an almost complete rewrite - a daunting task. Although the idea intrigues me, I am inclined to doubt whether it deserves priority over the filling of the many other gaps in the CZ treatment of economics.

What do you think?

Nick Gardner 08:53, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I noticed this mess the other day. It all needs to be integrated and rationalised. I am very late with some publishing and teaching obligations, so I need to get them out of the way before I help with this.

The priority of work needs to be decided. I suggest trying to fill in the page on the workgroup home, and hope that some other people will come along. You may add another category if you feel one is needed: this was just my preliminary atttempt to classify what is there and what is needed.

It is your own choice what you feel happiest doing:-) We are grateful to have an economist of your ability here and writing stuff! --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 09:25, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I've been working on cleanup, and adding references and important topics (I just added a section on institutionalists). This is an encyclopedia and we want to touch on all the important and influential ideas of the last 200 years. Many gaps remain (eg Keynes!). This is the survey article and it should not go in depth into any one topic. That is the function of specialized articles. The original article was "whiggish" history (that is the history of ideas the author considered important today), but that leaves out a great deal of economic thought that really mattered in its day.Richard Jensen 09:33, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I am inclined to leave the cleanup to you, Richard. You are obviously better qualified to do so than I am. However much is missing that is relevant to the current practice of the profession of economics, and some, I suspect, is poorly interpreted. I may come back with comments and contributions at a later stage. Nick Gardner 10:07, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I'm happy to do cleanup but we need you to add recent developments. Richard Jensen 10:25, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

OK. Nick Gardner 15:12, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

I realize parecon is not major, but a brief paragraph would seem worth a mention.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 15:56, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

What is parecon? Nick Gardner 16:30, 25 September 2007 (CDT)

Pareto? --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 16:36, 25 September 2007 (CDT)