Shackle on Equilibrium: A Critique

Gary Mongiovi

Review of Social Economy, 2000, vol. 58, issue 1, 108-124

Abstract: This paper presents a critical evaluation of Shackle's views on economic method. Shackle's arguments against equilibrium analysis are shown to apply to orthodox theory, which has subjectivist foundations, but not to the objectivist classical approach associated with Sraffa. The long-period equilibrium method is indispensable to the analysis of how market societies function. Moreover, since the classical theory contains no trace of the factor substitution mechanisms that underpin neoclassical orthodoxy, its explanations of distribution, employment and outputs must take explicit account of institutions, power and ethical norms. Thus there is no conflict between social economics and the method of the classical economists and Sraffa. On the contrary, the classical approach provides a rigorous framework for the investigation of the very issues that are at the center of institutional and social economics.

Keywords: Shackle; Sraffa; Equilibrium; Uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1080/003467600363138

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