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The wisdom of classical political economy in economics: incorporated or lost?

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Abstract

Is everything good in political economy incorporated into modern graduate education in economics? With the transition of the art of political economy into the science of economics, there was a significant narrowing of graduate education curriculum. The prevailing technique in economics, a neoclassical framework focusing on formal empirics, gradually compressed artistic components of economics, including philosophical underpinnings, democratic justifiability, theoretical intuition, comparative institutional analysis, and political economy. Courses on the history of economic thought, which historically played a role in introducing graduate students to the complexities of the art of political economy, are now only offered as an elective. This paper argues, however, that there are still insights to be gleaned from studying the classics of political economy in graduate education. We highlight the tradeoff between theoretical cumulativeness and knowledge, arguing that significant insights from historical works of political economy are often absent in contemporary technical expositions of economics. We explore examples of useful knowledge in political economy that was lost in the transition away from the art of political economy. To remain an operationally valid social science, economists should reintroduce the artistic elements of political economy into the graduate training of economists.

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Notes

  1. Though group think and path dependency may inhibit cumulativeness even in these areas (Klein & Stern, 2009; Ziliak & McCloskey, 2008).

  2. This may also be why new fields, such as experimental economics (Smith, 1994) and behavioral economics (Rizzo & Whitman, 2020) offer so much to challenge mainstream economics.

  3. See Samuels (2011) and Kennedy (2009) on the importance of the invisible hand metaphor in Smith’s work. See Klein (2009) and Klein and Lucas (2011) for a critique.

  4. In addition, List also introduced an early version of the concept of human capital which was only further developed by Becker (1962[2009]).

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  1. Political Economy Research Institute, Department of Economics and Finance, Middle Tennessee State University, 1301 E. Main Street, MTSU Box 190, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Gabriel F. Benzecry

  2. Political Economy Research Institute, Department of Economics and Finance, Middle Tennessee State University, 1301 E. Main Street, MTSU Box 190, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132, USA

    Daniel J. Smith

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Benzecry, G.F., Smith, D.J. The wisdom of classical political economy in economics: incorporated or lost?. Rev Austrian Econ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-022-00603-x

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Keywords

  • Adam Smith
  • Classics
  • Education
  • Graduate Education
  • History of Economic Thought
  • Karl Marx

JEL Codes

  • B12
  • B14
  • B15
  • B41