PEN-L message, Re: Public/Private

Jim -

The idea that there is a ‘dis-embedded’ “economy” was promoted by people like Robbins, who used the terms “endogenous” and “exogenous” in the same way that many mainstream and heterodox economists use it today. Robbins argued that economics should be concerned only with “what is” and should be “entirely neutral between ends”: “Economics is in no way to be conceived as being concerned with ends.” Robbins further asserts that if does not abide by his rules, then theirs is not a “science.” As one contemporary critic of Robbins put it:

We have seen the result of Professor Robbins’ attempt to provide such a demarcation; how it led him to exclude from the notice of economists, at least in their professional capacity, various topics which are important in themselves, and which only an economist can discuss with any real hope of reaching a successful outcome. Such are, outstandingly, all the many questions affecting the goal of economic policy—the desirability of equalizing incomes or abolishing private property in the means of production, for example; the possibility of establishing greater harmony of interests than at present exists between entrepreneurs and the community as a whole, and the methods whereby this might be accomplished; the advantages or disadvantages of organising the economy on a communist or co-operative basis. If Professor Robbins has his way, the economist will ignore these questions. (Lindsey Fraser, 1932).

Fraser, Lindley M., 1932, “How Do We Want Economists to Behave?,” Economic Journal, Vol. 42, No. 168, (Dec.), pp. 555-570.

Robbins, Lionel, 1932, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, London: Macmillan.