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Great Controversies

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Economic Theory in the Twentieth Century, An Intellectual History - Volume I

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Abstract

This chapter deals with some of the major controversies of the period between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the First World War. First is the methodological controversy between marginalists and neoclassicists versus historicists, from the Menger versus Schmoller Methodenstreit to the attempt at reconciliation of John Neville Keynes. Second, the chapter deals with the controversies about economics and mathematics. The chapter examines the Edgeworth-Walras-Bortkiewicz controversy on the application of mathematics to political economy of the years 1889–1891 and the debate between economists and scientists on mathematical economics in the period 1901–1914. Lastly, the chapter deals with the debate in Europe between economists and philosophers in the period 1894–1904 on Marx’s Capital, in particular, on the issue of the transformation of values into prices of production.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the relationship between Schmoller and Dilthey, see Salley (1993–1994).

  2. 2.

    This chapter is essentially based on Marchionatti (2007).

  3. 3.

    Another issue that was widely discussed, but chiefly in socialist and Marxist circles, was the law of the falling rate of profit and the breakdown of capitalism. The theoretical controversy on whether a breakdown of the system is inherent in the dynamics of capitalist accumulation involved many Marxist scholars and economists, from Eduard Bernstein to Karl Kautsky, Tugan-Baranovsky, Hilferding, Otto Bauer, and Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg’s Die Akkumulation des Kapitals. Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erklärung des Imperialismus (The Accumulation of Capital. A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism) (1913) was probably the best product of this debate.

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  1. Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Roberto Marchionatti

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Marchionatti, R. (2020). Great Controversies. In: Economic Theory in the Twentieth Century, An Intellectual History - Volume I. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40297-6_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40297-6_8

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