# Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes / History of Economic Analysis **URL:** **By** Roy A. Childs, Jr. **Published:** May 1, 1974 --- “The essays on Menger and Walras are classics, as in the essay on Marx, but the best essay in the book is Schumpeter’s adoring piece on the life and work of his beloved master, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.” Both by Joseph A. Schumpeter Joseph Schumpeter was Professor of Economics at Harvard University from 1932 until his death in 1950 and was one of the most famous and influential economists of his generation. While much of his work was done in the field of positive economic analysis—most notably his work on _The Theory of Economic Development_ and _Business Cycles_—he is perhaps most highly regarded today as an historian of economic thought. These two volumes—one a massive and comprehensive tome of over 1200 pages, the other a collection of essays on ten of the greatest figures in the history of economic thought—constitute the bulk of his life’s work in this field, and they stand unparalleled in comprehensiveness and in their wealth of detail. _Ten Great Economists_ is an easy-to-read work, a collection of thirteen essays by Schumpeter on the lives and thought of the great economists: Marx, Walras, Menger, Marshall, Pareto, Böhm-Bawerk, Taussig, Fisher Mitchell, Keynes, Knapp, von Wieser and the German statistician von Bortkiewicz. All are superbly written gems, summarizing the major ideas of the leading economic thinkers of Western Civilization since the mid-nineteenth century. The essays on Menger and Walras are classics, as in the essay on Marx, but the best essay in the book is Schumpeter’s adoring piece on the life and work of his beloved master, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. No single source is as good an introduction to Böhm-Bawerk as Schumpeter’s appreciation. The remaining essays, too, are fine summaries. But with his massive _History of Economic Analysis_, we come to one of the classics in the history of Western thought and the acknowledged classic in the history of economic analysis. Schumpeter’s approach is analytical in the extreme. While he covers economic thought from the time of the Greeks to the Keynesian Revolution, the work is not strictly chronological. Schumpeter takes up broad issues within a certain time period and analyzes the development of economic analysis with respect to certain categories. Thus while we learn about Aristotle’s view of the origin of private property and the State, we are also treated to an analysis of why there was so little economic analysis in Rome and why Roman law was important. Schumpeter devotes a full 70 pages to examining the economic thought of the Scholastic “natural law” philosophers alone, pointing out some similarities with later Austrian analysis. The great section “From the Beginnings to the First Classical Situation,” in fact, takes us from Plato to the physiocrats, but not in summary form: over 300 pages of analysis takes us far beyond the usual topics to include such topics as the sixteenth century systems, the aggression of national states and the physiocratic application of natural law to agriculture. Later sections are even more broad, embracing “Romanticism and Historiography,” “Evolutionism,” “Pre-Marxian Socialism,” “Psychology and Logic,” “Methodology,” “Say’s Law of Markets,” “Pure Theory” and “Money, Credit and Cycles,” just to mention a few of the more prominent. We learn about the rise and fall of classical liberalism, the rise of the Austrian School, the rise of nationalism and institutionalism, Marshall’s system, equilibrium analysis, the “production function” and a great deal more. Schumpeter’s general method is to take up a specific topic such as “non-monetary cycle analysis” and show us the growth of thought on the topic, how it relates with opposing views and attempted refutations. The systematic approach is not without its flaws: often we get bits and pieces which we must fit together ourselves. But in acquainting us with the broad spectrum of economic analysis, Schumpeter’s _History_ has no equal—and no close competitors. Virtually every important topic in economic thought is here and every important figure. Indeed, not just every important figure—everyone, often including some obscure thinker whom Schumpeter drags up from time to time as being an innovator or genius on this issue or that, But despite the often nerve-racking detail, the often paradoxical passages which make sense only when one jumps around to read related sections, Schumpeter’s great work stands as a milestone in the history of economic analysis. The best way to use the Schumpeter book is not to read it straight through. but to read it in conjunction with the sources to which Schumpeter refers. Far from being boring or obscure, most of the great classics of economic thought are more than readable, they are a positive joy: Smith, Malthus, Mill, Marshall, Menger and the like are all enlightening to read. But Schumpeter’s _History of Economic Analysis_ is more than a necessary guide, it is the only work I know of which takes each part and puts it within the context of the whole of economic thought, thus rendering each part all the more intelligible and enlightening. Both these works, _Ten Great Economists_ and _History of Economic Analysis_, are simply superb. _Ten Great Economists_ can be enjoyably read by virtually anyone, while _History of Economic Analysis_ should be reserved for those who either want to undertake a thorough study of economic thought or who want what is generally regarded as the most valuable reference work of its kind. Both are highly recommended RE- _Reviewed by R. A. Childs, Jr. / Economics / Ten Great Economists (305 Pages) / BFL Price $2.50 / History Of Economic Analysis (1260 Pages, Indexed) / BFL Price $12.50_