History of Economic Thought in the Post-Keynesian Tradition

Casual inspection of the post-Keynesian literature, like other heterodox literatures, reveals an extent of reference to historical texts and analysis of these texts that is unusual in modern economics, although not in earlier economic literature. The purpose of this essay is to provide an account of the part that history of thought plays in post-Keynesian economics, and how history of thought is understood within the school. I will argue that this understanding does not allow for history of thought to be fitted into dualistic categories, or indeed to be separated off from economics itself. While some have raised issue with post-Keynesian history of thought by means of this attempt at posing distinctions, we will explore here how the post-Keynesian approach to history of thought takes issue with the distinctions themselves.

The discussion therefore begins with a general account of the background of historiographical discussion, bearing in mind the way in which the heterodox economists' use of history of thought is viewed by others. I then offer an account of the organic way in which history of thought is embedded in post-Keynesian economics, looking first at the founders and then at the developing school of post-Keynesians. This account will refer more to the type of use made of, and contribution to, the history of thought than to the specific content of the relevant history of thought.¹ The essay then considers post-Keynesian history of thought in terms of current categories: how far post-Keynesians draw on history of economic analysis as something distinct from “pure history,” and the relationship between history of thought and methodology/Methodology in post-Keynesianism. Finally, I consider the future role of history of thought from the point of view of developing and promoting a particular approach to economics.

1. The Role and Nature of History of Thought in Post-Keynesian Economics

We consider here two sets of categories in the historiography literature that have been used to characterize post-Keynesian economics in relation to the history of thought. The first refers to how far history of economic thought conforms to “proper” history, and the second to the relationship between history of thought and methodology.

Discussion of history of thought has at times focused on two categories: intellectual history (IH) and the history of economic analysis (HEA) (see Waterman 1998 and Coats 2000). The former, according to A. M. C. Waterman (1998, 304), represents “an attempt to discover some features of the past as it really was,” while the latter is designed to “trace the lines of descent to leading analytical themes in economics and to study intellectual connections between the different lines,” or doctrinal history. One way of putting the distinction is that IH offers a historical reconstruction, while HEA offers a rational reconstruction (Blaug 1990; Winch 1998, 355).² Waterman maintained that each form of history has value for economists, and that each can inform the other.

It has been argued by some that history of thought within a heterodox school of thought inevitably falls into the category of HEA. Further, it has been argued that history of economic thought scholars should instead aspire to construct their history as historians do, that is, IH (see the fuller discussion of this argument in Boettke, this volume). The argument to be developed here is rather that post-Keynesian history of thought does not fit readily into either category. While history of thought is pursued primarily to inform modern economics (and thus is not IH), this goal is seen as being best served by building up a historian's understanding of older texts (and thus not HEA). While it may be argued that some of this is done well and some badly, like anything else, the point to be made here is that post-Keynesian history of thought does not allow for a separation between history...