"The history of economic thought is irrepressible. It would survive even if it were banned … it would be carried on in secret in underground organizations. Many economists denigrate the history of economics as mere antiquarianism but, in fact, they have deluded ideas about the history of their own subject. After all, whenever anyone has a new idea in economics, whenever anyone hankers to start a new movement or school of thought, what is the first thing he or she does? Why, it is to rummage the attic of past ideas to establish an appropriate pedigree for the new departure. … Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Marshall and Keynes all drew on the history of economics to show that they had predecessors and forerunners; even Milton Friedman, when he launched the monetarist counterrevolution against Keynes, could not resist the temptation to quote David Hume over and again. The history of economic thought cannot be abolished and, were its study declared illegal, it would be studied in basements behind locked doors."
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Columbia University alumniEconomists from the United KingdomPeople from The HagueFellows of the British Academy
Original Language: English
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Sources
‘Introduction’, to Blaug, M. (ed.) (1991) The Historiography of Economics (Aldershot: Edward Elgar), p. x.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Blaug
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Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug FBA (3 April 1927 – 18 November 2011) was a Dutch-born British economist.
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