Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes by Joseph A. Schumpeter (review)

SHORTER NOTICES 103 states of mind which he seeks to ignore. His insistence on the "unreality " of the mind and its experiences does nothing to explain the illusion of their reality; one cannot see how or why, on his system, poems need poets. Nor does he attempt to suggest how literary criticism in terms of colour-tone is possible, or what it would be like: the examples he gives are in terms of the Cosmic Split, and few would allow them the objectivity which he claims. He grants that his method "puts criticism out of reach of the critics" (p. 136), yet admits that his ignorance of critical techniques puts it beyond his own (pp. 221-2). But it is, after all, idle to suppose that the reduction of all relations to identity can afford a basis for critical distinctions. F. E. SPARSHOTT Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes. By JOSEPH A. SCHUMPETER . New York: Oxford University Press, 1951. Pp. xiv, 305. $5.50. While waiting impatiently for the posthumous publication of the late Professor Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis it is good to have this collection of his essays on some of the great economists. The essays were written over a period of forty years, mostly on the death of an economist, or to celebrate some anniversary such as the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Marshall's Principles. Their collection in this volume is thoroughly justifiable; the translation of three of the essays for inclusion is a particularly valuable service. In addition to the ten essays, three short obituaries are included in an appendix. The essays are valuable as much for what they reveal of Schumpeter's thought as for the light they throw on the economists about whom he wrote. The longest essay is that on Karl Marx. It is reprinted from Capitalism , Socialism and Democracy of which it formed Part I. Schumpeter apparently intended to include instead "The Communist Manifesto in Sociology and Economics" written for the Journal of Political Economy to mark the centenary of the Manifesto, but his literary executors substituted the longer more comprehensive study. Professor Schumpeter 's choice was probably correct: the other essay is more in character; it is a remarkably effective short paper. It has been reprinted in another collection of his essays, Essays of Joseph A. Schumpeter, edited by Richard V. Clemence (Cambridge, Mass. 1951). Both studies of Marx call for careful reading: they are the product of admiration, real understanding, and profound disagreement! Since Schumpeter was himself a product of the Austrian School it is natural that there should be essays on Menger and Bohm-Bawerk; 10+ UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY and there is an obituary of Wieser. But Schumpeter had more sympathy with the School of Lausanne; hence the excellent short paper on Walras and the longer one on Pareto; hence, too, the paper on Irving Fisher. The Cambridge School is represented by his fine centenary tribute to Marshall and his generous though critical essay on the death of Maynard Keynes. "As with Marx, it is possible to admire Keynes even though one may consider his social vision to be wrong and every one of his propositions to be misleading.... Whatever happens to the doctrine, the memory of the man will live-outlive both Keynesianism and the reaction to it" (p. 291). Two other Americans join Irving Fisher in this select gallery of great economists: Taussig and W. C. Mitchell. Of Taussig he says: "He was one of the first to realize that economic theory ... is not a storehouse of recipes or a philosophy, but a tool to analyze the patterns of real life" (p. 215). Mitchell, and the National Bureau of Economic Research which he founded and inspired, laboured to discover the "patterns." "The purpose of presenting the facts so as to confront them with theories stands out impressively" (p. 259). There remain two obituaries: of G. F. Knapp, and of Von Bortkiewicz. The former has had little influence on economics of the English-speaking world in spite of the translation of his book on money; the latter is best known for his criticism of the Marxian theory of value. In the essays are...