Introduction

The thesis advanced in this chapter is that the history of economic thought is essential for anyone interested in understanding how economies work. Thus economists, precisely as producers and users of economic theories, should study and practise the history of economic thought. While illustrating this thesis, we will examine some questions of method that, apart from their intrinsic interest, may help in understanding our line of reasoning in this book.

Our thesis is opposed to the approach now prevailing. Most contemporary economists, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, are convinced that looking back may perhaps be of some use in training young economists, but is not necessary for the progress of research, which rather requires work on the theoretical frontier.

In the next section we will consider the foundations of this approach, also known as ‘the cumulative view’ of the development of economic thought. We shall see how, even in this apparently hostile context, a crucial role has been claimed for the history of economic thought.

The cumulative view has been opposed by other ideas on the path pursued by scientific research. In section 3 we take a look at the theses on the existence of discontinuities (Kuhn's ‘scientific revolutions’) or competition among different ‘scientific research programmes’ (Lakatos).