Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-22T20:02:14.155Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constructing Identity: The Post Keynesians and the Capital Controversies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Tiago Mata
Tiago Mata
Affiliation:
Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Economics in the 1960s was host to a number of dissenting movements challenging the profession's mainstream theories. As this mainstream changed in the 1970s, the dissenters also underwent a transformation of their own. By the late 1970s the dispersed dissenting voices had congregated to form groups of neo-Austrians, post-Keynesians, neo-Marxists and radical economists. Retrospectively, the 1970s appear as a period of intense negotiation among dissenters as they erected theoretical and methodological boundaries and institutions (associations, journals, seminars) that would come to define them. They were constructing not just conditions for carrying on their work but also a narrative perception of who they were, what they stood for and what was the nature of the profession they inhabited, which I hereafter call “identity” or “self-image.” The dispersed critiques were being redrawn into new sociological unities inside the profession. This paper aims to track one of the routes that brought dispersed critique into an organized and self-conscious grouping, self-identified as Post Keynesian economics. The broad question addressed is how did the Post Keynesians construct their identity?

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 241 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ahmad, S. 1986. “A Pasinetti Theory of Relative Profit Share for the Anti-Pasinetti Case.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economies 9 (Fall): 149–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arena, R. 1987. “L'école internationale d'été de Trieste (1981–1985): vers une synthèse classico-keynésienne?” Economies et sociétés n 7 (Mars): 205–38.Google Scholar
Asimakopulos, A. 1969. “A Robinsonian Growth Model in One-sector Notation.” Australian Economic Papers 8 (06): 41–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldone, S. 1984. “From Surrogate to Pseudo Production Functions.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 8 (09): 271–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, M. A. 1985. “The Methodological Resolution of the Cambridge Capital Controversies: A Comment.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 7 (Summer): 607–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaug, M. 1974. The Cambridge Revolution, Success or Failure? A Critical Analysis of Cambridge Theories of Value and Distribution. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Birner, J. 1996. “Cambridge Histories True and False.” In Marcuzzo, M. C., Pasinetti, L. L., and Roncaglia, A., eds., The Economics of Joan Robinson. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bruno, M., Burmeister, E. & Sheshinski, E. 1966. “Nature and Implications of the Reswitching of Techniques.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 526–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Champernowne, D. G. 1953–1954. “The Production Function and the Theory of Capital: Comment.” Review of Economic Studies 21 (2): 112–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, A. J. 1984. “The Methodological Resolution of the Cambridge Controversies.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 6 (Summer): 614–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, A. J. 1985. “Issues in the Cambridge Controversies.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 7 (Summer): 612–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, A. J. & Harcourt, G. C. 2003. “Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Controversies?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (Winter): 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, P. 1968. “The Demand and Supply of Securities and Economic Growth and its Implications for the Kaldor-Pasinetti Versus Samuelson-Modigliani Controversy.” American Economic Review 58 (05): 252–69.Google Scholar
Davidson, P. 1972. Money and the Real World. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Davis, J. B. 1987. “Three Principles of Post Keynesian Methodology.” Journal ofPost Keynesian Economics 9 (Summer): 552–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deane, P. 1989. “A Bibliographical Memoir.” In Rima, Ingrid H., ed., The Joan Robinson Legacy. New York: ME Sharpe.Google Scholar
Dow, S. 1980. “Methodological Morality in the Cambridge Controversies.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 2 (Spring): 368–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dow, S. 1982. “Neoclassical Tautologies and the Cambridge Capital Controversies: Reply.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 5 (Fall): 132–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dow, S. 2002. “History of Economic Thought in the Post Keynesian Tradition.” In Weintraub, E. Roy, ed., The Future of the History of Economics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Eichner, A. S. & Kregel, J. A. 1975. “An Essay on Post-Keynesian Theory: A New Paradigm in Economics.” Journal of Economic Literature 13 (12): 1293–314.Google Scholar
Fazi, E. & Salvadori, N. 1985. “The Existence of a Two-class Economy in a General Cambridge Model of Growth and Distribution.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 9 (06): 155–64.Google Scholar
Fleck, F. H. & Domenghino, C.-M. 1987. “Cambridge (U.K.) versus Cambridge (Mass.): A Keynesian Solution of ‘Pasinetti's Paradox’.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 10 (Fall): 22–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garegnani, P. 1966. “switching of Techniques.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 555–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halevi, J. 1985. “Switching and Employment.” Eastern Economic Journal 11 (07–09): 229–34.Google Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1969. “Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital.” Journal of Economic Literature 7 (06): 369–405.Google Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1972. Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital. London: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1975a. “Capital Theory: Much Ado About Something.” Thames Papers in Political Economy (Autumn): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1975b. “The Cambridge Controversies: The Afterglow.” In Parkin, M. and Nobay, A. R., eds., Contemporary Issues in Economics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1976. “The Cambridge Controversies: Old Ways and New Horizons—Or Dead End?” Oxford Economic Papers 28 (03): 25–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 1999. “‘Horses for Courses’: The Making of a Post-Keynesian Economist.” In Heertje, Arnold, ed., The Makers of Modern Economics Vol. 4. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. 2000. “Harcourt, Geoff Collin.” In Arestis, P. and Sawyer, M., eds., A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Harcourt, G. C. & Hamouda, O. F. 1988. “Post-Keynesianism: From Criticism to Coherence?” Bulletin of Economic Research 40 (01): 1–33.Google Scholar
Harris, D. J. 1973. “Capital, Distribution, and the Aggregate Production Function.” American Economic Review 63 (03): 100–13.Google Scholar
Harris, D. J. 1978. Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, J. 1974. “Perspectives in Twentieth Century Economic Theory: Capital Controversies, Ancient and Modern.” American Economic Review 64 (05): 307–16.Google Scholar
Hodgson, G. 1997. “The Fate of the Cambridge Capital Controversy.” In Arestis, P. and Sawyer, M. C., eds., Capital Controversy, Post Keynesian Economics and the History of Economics: Essays in Honour of Geoff Harcourt. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Isserman, M. & Kazin, M. 2000. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
King, J. E. 1994. Conversations with Post Keynesians. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
King, J. E. 2002. A History of Post Keynesian Economics Since 1936. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Kregel, J. A. 1971. Rate of Profit, Distribution and Growth: Two Views. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kregel, J. A. 1973. The Reconstruction of Political Economy: An Introduction to Post-Keynesian Economics. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laibman, D. & Nell, E. J. 1977. “Reswitching, Wicksell Effects and the Neoclassical Production Function.” American Economic Review 67 (12): 878–88.Google Scholar
Lee, F. S. 2000a. “Alfred S. Eichner, Joan Robinson and the Founding of Post Keynesian Economics.” In W. J. Samuels, ed., Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 18c, pp. 9–40.Google Scholar
Lee, F. S. 2000b. “The Organizational History of Post Keynesian Economics in America, 1971–1995.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 23 (Fall): 141–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levhari, D. 1965. “A Non-substitution Theorem and Switching of Techniques.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 79 (02): 98–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mata, T. 2002. “How Important are Labels? The Label of Post Keynesian Economics.” History of Economics Society Annual Meeting 2002 (07). Davis CA. Unpublished.Google Scholar
Morishima, M. 1966. “Refutation of the Non-Switching Theorem.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 520–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nell, E. J. 1967a. “Theories of Growth and Theories of Value.” Economic Development, Cultural Change 16 (10): 15–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nell, E. J. 1967b. “Wicksell's Theory of Circulation.” Journal of Political Economy 75 (08): 386–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasinetti, L. L. 1966. “Changes in the Rate of Profit and Switches of Techniques.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 503–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, J. 1953–1954. “The Production Function and the Theory of Capital.” Review of Economic Studies 21 (2): 81–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, J. 1956. The Accumulation of Capital. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Robinson, J. 1971. “The Measure of Capital: The End of the Controversy.” Economic Journal 81 (09): 597–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, J. 1975. “The Unimportance of Reswitching.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 89 (02): 32–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salanti, A. 1982. “Neoclassical Tautologies and the Cambridge Capital Controversies.” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 5 (Fall): 128–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sale, K. 1974. Students for a Democratic Society. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1962. “Parable and Realism in Capital Theory: The Surrogate Production Function.” Review of Economic Studies 39 (06): 193–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1966. “Summing Up.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 568–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1975. “Steady-State and Transient Relations: A Reply on Reswitching.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 89 (02): 40–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. & Levhari, D. 1966. “The Non Switching Theorem is False.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 80 (11): 518–19.Google Scholar
Students for a Democratic Society. 1962. The Port Huron Statement. Port Huron, MI: SDS.Google Scholar
Sraffa, P. 1960. The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Solow, R. M. 1955–1956. “The Production Function and the Theory of Capital.” Review of Economic Studies 23 (2): 101–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solow, R. M. 1963. Capital Theory and the Rate of Return. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing.Google Scholar
Solow, R. M. 1975. “Brief Comments.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 89 (02): 48–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiglitz, J. E. 1974. “The Cambridge-Cambridge Controversy in the Theory of Capital: A View from New Haven: A Review Article.” Journal of Political Economy 82 (07–08): 893–903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swan, T. W. 1956. “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation.” Economic Record 32 (63): 334–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, M. 1989. Joan Robinson and the Americans. London: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Watts, M. J. & Gaston, N. J. 1982–1983. “The “Reswitching” of Consumption Bundles: A Parallel to the Capital Controversies?” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 5 (Winter): 281–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weintraub, E. R. 1991. Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing Economic Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar