J. A. Schumpeter, Werner Stark, and the Historiography of Economic Thought

Abstract

This article intends to assess and compare the main contributions to our discipline of two major authors and authorities. Both of them originated in Central Europe and, later on, went to work in the United States, where their most important books on the subject were published posthumously during the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, besides pertaining to different generations, they also were very unlike from each other.The eldest, Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950), remains much better known among contemporary economists, although very few of them seem to have read in its entirety his imposing History of Economic Analysis (1954a), still a model of our trade. The same probably also applies to his shorter and previous book on the same subject, Economic Doctrine and Method, which had been initially published in Germany forty years earlier, as well as to the essays collected in his Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes.

W. Stark, J. M. Keynes, and the Mercantilists

“…A number of contributions discuss his historiographical position (Clark (1994(Clark ( , 1994A, 2001), Szmrecsányi (2001)) but a full scale investigation of his work, and the ramifications his work has both on how we write on economics of previous eras, and how economic theory relates to…”

“…This approach has been reviewed in Clark (1994Clark ( , 1994A, 2001 and Szmrecsányi (2001). "No society can see the vastness of reality at the same time from all conceivable angles; only the divine mind can be imagined of this possibility; every society must take up some concrete vantage-point from which to survey the broad -the unboundedacres of that which is, and every society will therefore have its own particular picture of reality because it sees reality, and must see it, in one particular perspective.…”

“…Werner Stark (1909Stark ( -1985 was a sociologist, economic historian, and historian of economic thought who is not widely remembered among history of economic thought (HET) scholars today. A number of contributions discuss his historiographical position (Clark 1994a(Clark , 1994b(Clark , 2001Szmrecsányi 2001), but a full-scale investigation of his work, and the ramifications his work has on both how we write on economics of previous eras and how economic theory relates to context, has yet to be undertaken. The present paper intends to contribute to this investigation by 1) exploring the strengths and weaknesses of Stark's approach to historiography, 2) seeing how this can frame and answer important questions in relation to the writings of the mercantilist era, and 3) developing a link between a pluralist understanding of economics and the sociology of Correspondence may be addressed to: C. Repapis, Institute of Management Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London.…”

“…This approach has been reviewed in Clark (1994aClark ( , 1994bClark ( , 2001 and Tamás Szmrecsányi (2001). Both authors note the difference between Stark's and Joseph Schumpeter's approach to historiography.…”