General Theorizing and Historical Specificity in the ‘Keynes Versus the Classics’ Dispute

Teodoro Dario Togati ()
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Teodoro Dario Togati: University of Turin

Eastern Economic Journal, 2021, vol. 47, issue 2, No 6, 273-294

Abstract: Abstract This paper addresses the issues of general theorizing and historical specificity in the ‘Keynes versus the Classics’ dispute and puts forward two main arguments. First, the current macroeconomic orthodoxy wins the ‘relative’ generality contest because it implies that institutions influence outcomes, such as the natural rate of unemployment, in contrast with Keynes’s ‘internalist’ approach, which neglects historical specificity. Secondly, mainstream macro is not truly general in an ‘absolute’ sense since it only makes sense under very special real-world institutional conditions.

Keywords: The General Theory; Historical specificity; General theorizing; Research programme; Standard macroeconomics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B0 B5 E0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1057/s41302-020-00177-1

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