Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism: Across the Watershed

Critical Reconstructions of Political Economy, Volume 3

Series: 

Author:
Ben Fine
In Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism, Ben Fine traces the cliometric revolution, from before its emergence through three phases of the new, the newer and the newest economic history. These phases are shown to correspond to those of “economics imperialism”, the colonisation of topics and fields by mainstream economics, moving successively through as if there were perfectly working markets, as if imperfectly working markets, and these combined plus arbitrary inclusion of other variables.
The text draws upon case studies, for example of the putative eighteenth-century consumer revolution, Douglass North, path dependence, and the British coal industry, and through exposing the reduction of economic theory and economic history deployed within them and giving rise to a corresponding reduction in the presence of the social, the historical and political economy.
Copyright Year:
2024
E-Book (PDF)
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68927-5
Publication:
27 Nov 2023
Hardback
Availability:
Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68926-8
Publication:
29 Nov 2023
Cover Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism: Across the Watershed

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Ben Fine, Ph.D. (1974), London School of Economics, is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Visiting Professor at Wits School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. His most recent books include Material Cultures of Financialisation, co-edited with Kate Bayliss and Mary Robertson (Routledge, 2018); Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State, co-edited with John Reynolds and Robert van Niekerk (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2019); and A Guide to the Systems of Provision Approach: Who Gets What, How and Why, with Kate Bayliss (Palgrave, 2021). His Marx’s ‘Capital’ (Pluto, 2016) is now in its sixth edition (with co-author Alfredo Saad Filho). He was founding Chair of the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (iippe.org) until June 2023.
Preface

List of Figures and Tables

1 Economic History as Economics Imperialism: a Retrospective
 1 The Personal Background

 2 Cliometrics across the Watershed, from General Principles

 3 … To Practice

 4 Concluding Remarks


2 Consumerism and the Industrial Revolution
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 Economic History through Which Looking Glass?

 3 Is There a Supply and Demand for Industrial Revolution?

 4 Economic Theory and the Consumerist Approach

 5 Is Emphasis on Demand and Supply the Answer?

 6 The Demand for Fashion in Clothes

 7 Missing Markets

 8 Production of Clothing

 9 Persistence of Luxury Goods in Clothing

 10 Concluding Remarks


3 Economies of Scale and a Featherbedding Cartel? A Reconsideration of the Interwar British Coal Industry
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 Neither Economies of Scale …

 3 … Nor Featherbedding Cartel

 4 Royalties: the Unobserved Barking Dog


4 Coal, Diamonds and Oil: towards a Comparative Theory of Mining?
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 i Introduction

 2 Minerals and Landed Property

 3 Cartels and Minerals

 4 Concluding Remarks


5 Reflections on and from the Cliometric Revolution
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism

 3 Discarding Dissent

 4 Concluding Remarks


6 From Principle of Pricing to Pricing of Principle: Rationality and Irrationality in the Economic History of Douglass North
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 From New to Newer Economic History

 3 Shifting Vision of the Historian of the Western World

 4 From Principle of Pricing to Pricing of Principle

 5 Concluding Remarks


7 Douglass North’s Remaking of Economic History: a Critical Appraisal
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 Theoretical Considerations

 3 Making Economic History

 4 Theoretical Considerations: a Critique

 5 North’s Journey from Theory to History: a Critique

 6 Transaction Costs in History: a Critique

 7 Concluding Remarks


8 From New to Newer Economic History
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 New and Improved: from as If Perfect to Imperfect Markets

 3 Testing the New Product

 4 Concluding Remarks


9 From qwerty to Microsoft and Beyond
  Postscript as Personal Preamble

 1 Introduction

 2 David and the Two Goliaths – Economics and History

 3 Hayekian Revenge on Path Dependence

 4 Culture, Institutions, Narrative and All That Jazz

 5 Crafting the Newer Economic History

 6 Finance before Financialisation

 7 Concluding Remarks


References

Index

All interested in economic history, history of economic thought, critique of mainstream economics and promotion of heterodox economics, interdisciplinarity and the scale and scope of economics imperialism and its critique.
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