We all know the Austrian School[;)], but waht are the other schools of economic thought and what is there approach to thinking about economics:
Just to list some:
Austrian School (praxeology and subjective value )
Classical School (Adam Smith)
Historical School (Roscher, Schmoller etc)
Keynesians (what is their point)
Institutionalist School (Veblen / evolutionary economics)
Marxist, Socialists
Neo-Classical
Please add and comment to your liking. I would like to compare the approaches and check the strength and weaknesses.
By ‘neo-classicals’ who do you mean? Chicagoans and Neo-keynesians?
Anyway, I would add:
-Monetarists (Friedman, Posner, focus on monetary phenomena, money matters)
An interesting overview. Unfortunately some of the links are not working anymore. Why did economics as a discipline come up only that late, while other sciences were already the subject of investigation long before?!
Funny that the site lists the Austrian School under the Neo-classical schools.
Because prior to the neo-classical revolution economics wasn’t thought of as an objective science understood by mathematical formulas but rather an ethical inquiry into production and distribution based on three factors (land, labor, capital) - where distribution means who is to JUSTLY receive each of the returns on the three factors.
I believe Carl Menger did attempt to reformulate it into a science though (and IMO he largely succeeded.) Classical economics was multiply flawed. I am curious to see how George Reisman has reintegrated it with Austrianism.
WmBGreene:
Because prior to the neo-classical revolution economics wasn’t thought of as an objective science understood by mathematical formulas but rather an ethical inquiry into production and distribution based on three factors (land, labor, capital) - where distribution means who is to JUSTLY receive each of the returns on the three factors.
Oh yes. I think the German term was “Wertfreiheit”. Recently I found an interesting article:
A Short History of Economics As a Moral Science*
James E. Alvey
Introduction
Economics grew out of moral philosophy and eventually became one of the moral sciences. At some point the mainstream of economics became detached from the moral sciences and then from morality itself. I will argue that this detachment from moral concerns is not part of the tradition of economics. It emerged only during the present century.
There are two major reasons why economics has become detached from moral concerns. First, the natural sciences came to be seen as successful, and the attempt was made to emulate that success in economics by applying natural science methods, including mathematics, to economic phenomena . Second, the self-styled economic science came to adopt positivism, which ruled out moral issues from science itself. These points will be demonstrated below.
It is a widely held view today among mainstream economists that economics is free from any ideological, theological, or moral philosophy. One commentator on the role of ethics in mainstream economics has stated:
The “scientification” of economics … has led to a separation of economics from its ethical roots. The “mainstream economics” of the twentieth century fully accepts this separation. Economic theory is seen as a positive science which has to analyse and to explain the mechanisms of economic processes…. Important as ethical valuations (“ought”-statements) may be, they should not form part of the economist’s research programme.1
Similarly, a recent commentator on the role of positivism in economics argued this way:
Most economists today … would agree that the claim of an economic theory free from values is essential in establishing the scientific nature of the discipline. A positive, value-free economics, in the sense of not relying on any particular set of value judgments or on any philosophical or psychological framework, is generally seen as ideal. This approach has crucially influenced important branches of economics such as microeconomic theory.2
…
http://www.systemfehler.de/moralscience.htm
This article could also form the base for an interesting discussion here.
Well wertfreiheit is certainly not something most Austrians would dispute, and for good reason.