The Development of the Liberal Tradition, Part 1

Abstract

In his criticism of the traditional fashion in which economics has been taught, Robert Heilbroner has suggested the weakness of stressing either abstract principles of the market or the general flow of events, set apart from any analytic framework. In his study, The Making of Economic Society, he attempts to pursue a more fruitful approach:In our discussion of the development of the liberal tradition, we attempt to follow a similar approach, that is, we attempt to analyze a complex historical transition—or series of transitions—in terms of an explicit analytic framework. Two notions are central to this framework. The first I term “the problem of community” and the second “the world revolution.” I have discussed both—and particularly “the problem of community”—at much greater length elsewhere, but a preliminary explanation of the meaning I shall attach to them is a prerequisite for the presentation of the historical account. For this essay is an attempt to survey a complex historical development in terms of an explicit analytic framework. Thus, to begin with, a word about the “the problem of community” and “the world revolution.”