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Notes
- 1.
See again the citations offered by Frisch in Chap. 7, Vol. I.
- 2.
Limited to a selection of the most significant examples among a vast literature on this subject; it is further limited by what the authors themselves have read and, sometimes, casually selected.
- 3.
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), a Viennese economist who emigrated to the USA, will be considered in more detail in Chap. 1 (Vol. I) of this trilogy.
- 4.
Tinbergen J. , Two Approaches to the Future: Planning vs. Forecasting [mimeograph] 1971a, and Comment faut-il etudier l’avenir? [mimeograph], 1971b. These two papers, the first in English the second in French, are both dated 1971, and I was lucky enough to receive them from the hands of Tinbergen himself. However, I ignore the circumstance of their preparation and the press form they subsequently assumed. In fact, I ignore the fact that these papers—now preserved in the Library of the Planning Studies Centre—have never been officially published. They are not included in the bibliography of Tinbergen works edited by Kol and de Wolff (1993), two of his colleagues (Kol was also his successor as head of the Dutch Central Planning Bureau) and published in the reprint of the “Erasmus Centre for Economic Integration Studies” of the University of Rotterdam. I thank Prof. Kol for having sent me a complimentary copy at the time. In any case the two papers were also reprinted in the “Reprints” series of the Planning Studies Centre in 1984.
- 5.
One of the best reconstructions of such controversy between Frisch and Tinbergen is by Leif Johansen in the cited work, Lectures etc. (in Sects. 3.10 and 3.11, pp. 234–255).
- 6.
For a deeper definition of the concepts of ‘projections’, ‘forecasts’ and ‘plans’, see Johansen 1977–78, Vol. 1, pp. 125–6. He adds two specific concepts: ‘conditional forecasts’ and ‘indicative forecasts’, which, though interesting, add little to the type of critical consideration developed here about the clean distinction between the two approaches. Further developments on this subject can also be found in (Theil 1961; Theil et al. 1964).
- 7.
Bruno de Finetti (1906–1984) is best known for his important studies on the ‘theory of probability’ (Theory of Probability, 1974).
- 8.
One of his volumes of various critical essays is entitled A mathematician and the economy (1969a) (unfortunately available only in Italian).
- 9.
I consider this essay one of the most important Italian contributions of recent decades to the progress of theoretical and methodological ideas in economics. The essay was published in a volume edited by the same author with the title Requirements for an Economic System Acceptable in Relations to the Needs of the Collectivity (1973b) (Requisiti per un Sistema economico accettabile in relazione ai bisogni della collettività) ed. Bruno de Finetti, Milano Franco Angeli, 1973b, (unfortunately available only in Italian). Republished recently in Amari and de Finetti, eds., Bruno de Finetti, Un matematico tra Utopia e Riformismo, EDIESSE, 2015. (Quotations in English in this trilogy translated by Archibugi, from the last edition).
- 10.
The quotation of Jakob Marschak is the most relevant expression of the distinction between descriptive and normative sciences and is at least restrictive, because it dates back to another time and other authors (see Chap. 6). Marschak did not abandon a positivist approach in his vision of economist of collective behaviour, as shown in many of his studies, his promotion in the USA as chairman of the Cowles Commission and in his last important and meaningful work, Economic Information, Decision and Prediction (1974) (see bibl. ref.).
- 11.
This essay originated from a long report presented by de Finetti to a seminar promoted by the Italian CIME (Mathematical Economics) in Urbino (20–25 September 1971), six years after another CIME Seminar in L’Aquila (1965), where Ragnar Frisch gave two lectures presenting his ‘General outlook on a method of advanced and democratic macroeconomic planning’ (as recalled in several chapters of the first two parts of this book). The epistemological ‘overturning’ here argued for by de Finetti is, compared to Frisch, supported by a series of negative considerations on the use of mathematics in economics, although not limited and conditioned by a precise and predetermined planning system, that is, by some achievable objectives of a political preference function. This essay by de Finetti was practically ignored in Italy (and outside Italy even more, of course) and it deserves to be republished and revisited in English by young economists of the new generation (as do Frisch’s lectures of the same CIME seminar in 1965).
- 12.
Published in a collected volume edited by Bell himself in cooperation with I. Kristol under the title The Crisis in Economic Theory (1981).
- 13.
The best-known books by Bell are The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973) and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976). According to information from Wikipedia, the first and third of these books have been listed in the Times Literary Supplement as among the 100 most important books of the second half of the twentieth century. Daniel Bell died in January 2011, after having expressed his final non-conformist ideas on contemporary society in a rather perturbing compilation book, The Winding Passage: Sociological Essays and Journeys (1980).
- 14.
More arguments on why Bell can be considered a good representative of a critical ‘non-positivist’ sociology are contained in another of my works, in which I have discussed structural changes in the economy and in contemporary society and where I have outlined a critical survey of the shortcomings typical of many traditional approaches to change (the technological, economic, historic, institutional and sociological approaches), due to their common positivist ‘vice’ (see Archibugi, The Associative Economy etc., Macmillan, 2000a, pp. 106–111).
- 15.
The term can be clarified by reference to its Greek etymon (and has also been absorbed into Latin): para = against; doxa = opinion. The dictionaries define it as: ‘a statement contrary to accepted opinion’ (Oxford); ‘contrary to received opinion’ (Webster); ‘affemazione che è in contrasto con l’opinione dei più’ (Garzanti/Cusatelli); ‘pensée, opinion contraire à l’opinion commune’ (Larousse).
Bibliographical References to Chapter 1 (Vol. II)
Bell, Daniel. (1981). Models and Reality in Economic Discourse. The Crisis of Economic Theory. D. Bell and I. Kristol. New York, Basic Books.
de Finetti, Bruno. (1973b). ‘The Utopia as necessary presupposition, etc.’ in Requirements for an acceptable economic system etc. [ed. de Finetti, pp.13–15].
Frisch, Ragnar. (1957). Oslo Decision Models. Oslo, University of Oslo Institute of Economics.
Kol, J. and de Wolff, P. (1993). ‘Tinbergen’s Work: Change and Continuity.’ De Economist 141 (No. 1): 1–28. [Includes a bibliographic catalog of the works of J. Tinbergen] (Reprint, by ‘Erasmus Centre for Economic Integration Studies’, University of Rotterdam).
Theil, H. (1961). Economic Forecasts and Policy. Amsterdam, North-Holland.
Theil, H. et al. (1964). Optimal Decision Rules for Government and Industry. Amsterdam, North-Holland.
Tinbergen, J. (1971a). Two Approaches to the Future: Planning Vs. Forecasting, [mimeo].
Tinbergen, J. (1971b). Comment faut-il étudier l’avenir?, pp. 1–2.
von Mises, L. (1962). The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science. An Essay on Method. Van Nostrand, (Princeton, etc, 1962).
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Archibugi, F. (2019). The Programming Approach: As Epistemologically Based, Futuristic Decision and ‘Rational Utopia’. In: The Programming Approach and the Demise of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78060-3_1
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