Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part 1 The classical essay in twentieth-century economic methodology
- Part 2 Reading and writing a classic
- Part 3 Models, assumptions, predictions, evidence
- Part 4 Theoretical context: firm, money, expected utility, Walras and Marshall
- 8 Friedman's 1953 essay and the marginalist controversy
- 9 Friedman (1953) and the theory of the firm
- 10 Friedman's selection argument revisited
- 11 Expected utility and Friedman's risky methodology
- 12 Milton Friedman's stance: the methodology of causal realism
- 13 On the right side for the wrong reason: Friedman on the Marshall–Walras divide
- Part 5 Concluding perspectives
- Index
13 - On the right side for the wrong reason: Friedman on the Marshall–Walras divide
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Part 1 The classical essay in twentieth-century economic methodology
- Part 2 Reading and writing a classic
- Part 3 Models, assumptions, predictions, evidence
- Part 4 Theoretical context: firm, money, expected utility, Walras and Marshall
- 8 Friedman's 1953 essay and the marginalist controversy
- 9 Friedman (1953) and the theory of the firm
- 10 Friedman's selection argument revisited
- 11 Expected utility and Friedman's risky methodology
- 12 Milton Friedman's stance: the methodology of causal realism
- 13 On the right side for the wrong reason: Friedman on the Marshall–Walras divide
- Part 5 Concluding perspectives
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In 1949 Milton Friedman published an article on the Marshallian demand curve (Friedman ([1949b] 1953) which is still frequently quoted, less for its main argument than for its short final section entitled “Alternative conceptions of economic theory” in which he launched a fierce attack on Walrasian theory. Drawing a contrast between the Marshallian and the Walrasian approaches, Friedman expressed his regret that the latter had superseded the former. In his oft-quoted words, “We curtsy to Marshall but we walk with Walras” (Friedman [1949b] 1953, 89).
Eminent Friedman scholars, such as Roger Backhouse (1997), Mark Blaug (2003), Michael Bordo and Anna Schwartz (2004), Dan Hammond (1996, 2003), Abraham Hirsch and Neil De Marchi (1990), Kevin Hoover ([1984] 1990), and Tom Mayer (1993, 2009), have endorsed Friedman's claim about the Marshall–Walras divide. The following quotation from Hammond summarizes the gist of their argument:
The hallmark of Friedman's methodology is Marshallianism. With this label he sets his view apart from the Walrasians'. In the 1940s the differences in the two methodologies were recognized, and as we have seen, they were not Friedman's creation. As time passed, the Walrasian approach ascended to a position of dominance in both micro and macroeconomics, with the virtues of the general equilibrium approach and mathematical qualities of elegance and generality taken for granted by most economists.
(Hammond 1996, 43)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Methodology of Positive EconomicsReflections on the Milton Friedman Legacy, pp. 321 - 346Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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