The convoluted influence of Robbins’s thinking on the emergence of Economics Imperialism

Ignacio Falgueras-Sorauren

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2018, vol. 42, issue 5, 1473-1494

Abstract: This article analyses the influence of Robbins’s thought on the subsequent development of economics imperialism. First, the analysis of some passages that have been overlooked up to the present, in which the author explicitly expresses his disbelief in the omnipotence of the economic method, makes it possible to argue that Robbins did not share the confidence exhibited by the advocates of economics imperialism in the capacity of economics to explain non-economic phenomena. Second, this article shows that Robbins describes the influence of real scarcity on human behaviour in terms of a (static) constrained maximization problem, thereby confusing issues of method and scope in his writings. This confusion facilitated the view that economics is a method without a proper subject matter and its later expansion into other fields. In conclusion, although Robbins cannot be counted as an earlier promoter of economics imperialism, the misunderstandings implicit in his writings paved the way for the emergence of this intellectual movement.

Keywords: Robbins’s definition; Economics imperialism; Constrained optimization Problems; Real scarcity; Formal scarcity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bey004 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cambje:v:42:y:2018:i:5:p:1473-1494.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().