By Way of Introduction

Abstract

This book criticizes the static marginalist equilibrium method of analysis of the individual firm, and has still broader implications. Although the analysis is critical in form, I write out of a belief in the high importance of economic theory and in the positive worth of evaluative stocktaking for the further development of economics. It may be of interest, therefore, to review the background from which the book has been written, by way of an introduction to it.

… I do not agree that discussions about method are ‘time wasted in quarrelling’…. There has for some years been too much abstention from it among economists… —J. H. Clapham, 1922