Book Description

Excerpt from A Critique of Economics: Doctrinal and Methodological On account of recent developments in philosophy and science we are today again confronted with the important question as to whether economics is really a science or only a study of values akin to philosophy proper. If economics is a science comparable to physics or chemistry, for example, applications in both private and public life may be possible ; if not, the practical value of economic research must be slight, whatever our interest in it on other grounds. This book is an attempt mainly to show in what sense economics may be called a science, and what changes seem necessary to bring it into harmony with current facts and concepts in allied fields. The first part is entirely critical, following other writers who have broken with either Utilitarian (classical and neo-classical) or Marginal economics, or with both. It deals with the errors of the old psychology on which economic theorizing until recently was based, and supports the well-known contention that economic laws so far have been not so much laws as proofs derived from certain more or less arbitrary assumptions. To this extent then the first part goes over familiar ground and leads simply to a negation. The second part, however, is meant to be more than a criticism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.