The Stumbling-blocks of Economics: Complexity, Time and Change

Goodwin, Neva (1991): The Stumbling-blocks of Economics: Complexity, Time and Change. Published in: (1991): pp. 117-140.

Abstract

This is Chapter 6 from Social Economics: An Alternative Theory (St. Martin's Press, 1991) There were issues of complexity, time and change which Alfred Marshall recognized as essential aspects of his subject but which were not readily dealt with by the 'scientific' techniques which he was helping to develop. As he feared, the forces which he helped to put in motion have in fact resulted in a situation wherein these bothersome but crucial issues have been pushed aside by techniques which are powerful in other achievements, but not sufficient for the degree of complexity that interested Marshall. This chapter outlines what Marshall saw as the deepest problems in the development of an economic science - problems which, the author claims, have continued to enjoy the same status: as unsolved, if not insoluble.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: methodology, complexity; time; Alfred Marshall
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B0 - General

References

Andrew M. Kamark, Economics In the Real World (University of Philadelphia Press, 1983) p. 2.

A. C. Pigou, Alfred Marshall and Current Thought (Macmillan, London, 1953) pp. 16-17.

A. Marshall, 'Mechanical and Biological Analogies in Economics' (1898) quoted in Memorials, p. 313.

Philip J.Davis and Reuben Hersh, The Mathematical Experience (Birkhäuser, Boston, 1981) p. 244.

Wesley Salmon, 'Introduction' to Zeno 's Paradoxes, (ed.) Wesley C. Salmon (Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1970) p. 24.

Robert Bishop, Lectures on Microeconomics; in mimeo

A. Marshall, 'Mechanical and Biological Analogies in Economics' (1898) in Memorials, p. 318).

Mark Blaug 'Marshallian Economics: Utility and Demand' in Economic Theory in Retrospect, 4th edn (Cambridge University Press, 1985; first printed in 1962).

A. Rosenblueth, N. Wiener and J. Bigelow, 'Purpose and Teleology', Philosophy of Science, 10, p. 23.