Uchronies and the History of Economic Knowledge*

The international community of historians of economic thought is not essentially divided between ‘absolutists’ and ‘relativists’, or between ‘continuists’ and 'discontinuists Rather it is the specific content of the métier d'historien which makes the difference. This paper aims at highlighting and systematizing the features characterizing the work of innovative historians. Some of these features are represented by analyses concerning:

1 the intersections between pre-theoretical categories;

2 enunciative homogeneities/heterogeneities;

3 the formation and decomposition of social knowledge;

4 schools of thought

These different research practices are then unified under the common label of ‘uckronies’ (possible albeit non-arbitrary histories). Lastly, some implications of this interpretation are examined. One of them is particularly important: i. e. the irreducible ambiguity of the historian of economic thought vis-à-vis the economist. On the one hand, the former may hermeneutically discover new and valuable ideas from an intellectual viewpoint, but, on the other hand, the ways in which these ideas can enrich economic theory are absolutely uncertain. This ambivalence, together with the ‘scandalous’ trans-disciplinarity of the concepts and instruments employed by the historian of economic thought, may explain the diffidence of the economists towards the new tendencies of historiography.     

Schumpeter and the `Schmollerprogramm': integrating theory and history in the analysis of economic development

This essay addresses the historical and institutional aspects of Schumpeter's thought. It suggests that Schumpeter prepared a pluralist research agenda, formulated in accordance with the conceptual perspective of the German Historical School, as presented by major scholars such as Schmoller, Sombart, Spiethoff and Max Weber. Schumpeter's notion of development, with its emphasis on the correspondence of economic and socio-cultural evolution, is therefore to be viewed in the context of the comprehensive Schmollerian approach. Moreover the ethical-evolutionary components of Schmoller's ideas point at the vital role of the German Historical School in the elaboration of a modern evolutionary economics in Schumpeterian terms. The essay concludes that the Schmollerprogramm is going to inspire further developments in Schumpeterian economics, as the integration of theory and history continuously marks the research agenda of evolutionary approaches to economic development.