Liberty,equality, and efficiency J. E. Meade New York: New York university press, 1993, ix, 256 pp.

This is a review article of a book by J. E. Meade. The first part of the book is a reprint of a book published in 1964. This is not described. The remainder of the book, 164 pages, deals with a fictitious island-nation, Agathotopia, which is a good but not perfect place to live. The Agathotopian economy is based on a type of firm in which capitalists and laborers both hold shares which received equal dividends. Other matters described include taxes, the treatment of the environment, and the way in which Agathotopia might fit into an international union such as the European Community. The reviewer suggests that recent trends toward increased labor-management, profit sharing, and stock ownership plans may make the labor-capital partnership a serious alternative in the future.     

The legacy of Ricardo Giovanni A. Caravale,Ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985, 325 pp.

Conclusion The existence of competing interpretations of classics such as Ricardo, is one aspect of the continuation of distinct lines of inquiry in economic theorizing. This feature of economic knowledge may be related to the fact that theorizing in economics is often characterized by the specialized use of ordinary economic language, so that each theory generally derives its primitive terms from ordinary language through what one might call semantic specialization.Awareness of the history of economic concepts is essential to the interpretation of current economic controversies. Moreover, the history of economic thought should be based upon explicit recognition that alternative patterns of semantic specialization do exist in economic analysis and that distinct lines of inquiry are derived therefrom. Explicit recognition that disagreement is possible is an essential prerequisite for dialogues between distinct lines of research.The collection edited by Caravale is an important contribution which provides impressive evidence of the fundamental role that theoretical beliefs play in matters of textual interpretation. As such, the book is essential reading both to Ricardian scholars and to economists interested in the general issue of how analytical work and intellectual history interact upon each other in the formation of economic knowledge.This review article is part of the exchange of reviews between theAtlantic Economic Journal and theRivista Internatzionale Di Scienze Economiche E Commerciali (International Review of Economics and Business). L. E. Johnson is doing the reciprocal review of this book. The author acknowledges research support from the Italian National Research Council (CT 86.01257.10).     

Mr. J. A. Veeraart,Arbeidsloon

Utrecht, November 1911