Abstract

In economics there is chronology but no history. Ideas may develop, but the motivation is always the same. This assumption gives economics a basic, workable simplicity, which manifests itself today as an obsession with methodology and simple assumptions. Economists try to deduce practical conclusions from much ratiocination and few data, and trespass into the normative. But history is positive. Public finance, monetary policy and detailed planning are normative, and these are the areas that impinge most closely upon in fact, that constitute political economy. Political economy is useful when we do not ask too much of it. The aspects of economics which it touches are precisely the least developed. As for politics, no adequate generalization is yet possible on how power is acquired or on how it is used. Therefore, there can be no scientific political economy