The "Tragedy of Cambridge Economics" and Other Stories

In mid-February 1938, J. M. Keynes received a letter from Richard Kahn, at the time a member of the Cambridge Faculty Board of Economics and Politics, on the reform of the Economics Tripos, the honors degree introduced by Alfred Marshall in 1903. The faculty were in general agreement on its defects and the pressing importance of revision. On the question of what to do, they could not reach consensus despite recognizing that Cambridge was losing ground. As Keynes replied, The School [of economics] is going to pieces before our eyes. Half the teaching positions [are] filled up with duds or with those who have given up studying the subject seriously. There is no encouragement for the young. Personal considerations are disgracefully present. And we fall between two stools, because there is no will apparently to make proper progressive arrangements either on the lines of high theory or on the lines of modern realism. (Keynes to Kahn, 2/19/1938, JMK/L/K/94–96)Cambridge economics had reached an “awkward age, when the very fact that it started first” had become a “handicap.” In a troubling comparison, he suggested that “like some of the pioneer staple industries,” Cambridge was at risk of experiencing both the triumphs and the tragedy of a first market mover: the conditions that originally had made it successful now spelled failure (Keynes's notes on Tripos reform, 5/16/1938, JMK/UA/5/4/104–109).Keynes's assessment of Cambridge economics in the late 1930s anticipated by more than eighty years a main theme of Keith Tribe's latest book, Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline, 1850–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).1 How and why, he asks repeatedly, was economics transformed in the early twentieth century from political economy, a civic discourse validated by its place and performance in the public sphere, into economic science, a university discipline produced by social mechanisms of self-construction and self-validation: a “special kind of knowledge requiring no legitimation other than a mastery of its techniques” (18)? Constructing Economic Science (CES) is intended as a book “with a clear object,” its conclusion a “denouement that follows from the argument and evidence that has gone before.” A single objective, one argument, and one conclusion (xiii). Yes and no. Tribe plays numerous variations on the central question, posing and undertaking to settle a formidable array of questions.Why did the “twin processes” of Disziplinierung (disciplinization) and Verwis-senschaftlichung (scientification) that created economic science first gain traction in Britain? Why not in Germany, where political economy had been established as an academic field in the major universities and Handelshochschulen since the third quarter of the nineteenth century? Or why not in the United States, where there were departments of economics and doctoral programs in important research universities? Why was Cambridge the first mover? As Tribe notes, the archaic structure of Cambridge—a newer organizational system grounded in faculty research specializations borrowed from German universities and awkwardly grafted onto the medieval organization of the self-governing colleges—made this improbable. Why not another British university such as Manchester or Birmingham? Or an American business school such as Wharton? Indeed, why not Oxford, a question to which Tribe devotes an entire chapter? Why was it that “the kind of innovation that Marshall made at Cambridge could not have been made in contemporary Oxford” (173)? And although Cambridge was the first, why was “the Cambridge moment” nothing more than “a passing episode” (173)? Why did the advances of Verwissenschaftlichung stall at Cambridge, inevitably, as Tribe seems to argue? As he plots the rise of economic science, “Marshallianism” “hardly outlived” Marshall's death in 1924. “By the 1930s it was already superseded,” even “relegated to a prehistory by an emergent economic science divorced from substantive connection with the ‘ordinary business of life’ that was at the centre of Marshall's concerns” (141). How did it happen that, in the 1920s, “disciplinary initiative quickly moved away from Cambridge” (173) to the London School of Economics (LSE)? What were the decisive factors that made LSE the primary British innovator in producing and reproducing economic science?Tribe pursues these issues along two narrative tracks. Chiefly written as a single master narrative, the book is an “institutional chronology” of economic science as well as “a ‘genealogy of neoclassical economics’”: an account of the “Whig history” written by its “new incumbent practitioners,” exploring the forces that “moulded the development of a science whose practitioners subscribe to the illusion that their own ideas are, by virtue of being products of a progressive science, superior to the ideas of their predecessors” (18–19). Woven into the master narrative is an elaborate and discontinuous set of metanarrative remarks in which Tribe instructs readers on how to understand the master narrative. In these observations, sometimes confusing because of their occasional and casual quality, he anticipates, revisits, elucidates, and restates his intentions. Repetition is perhaps the definitive rhetorical quality of the book, in which the author leads readers from one economics faculty and commerce college to another as he makes his case. The longueurs of accumulating detail are not lost on Tribe himself. In a note to readers, he assumes that notwithstanding the importance he ascribes to the master narrative, it may not be read (xiii–xiv). Thus we have his frequent reminders in later chapters of what has been read and forgotten earlier or perhaps not read at all. Although an annoyance for readers who have no interest in a collection of textual modules, they do not seem to diminish Tribe's signal accomplishment: a breathtaking performance of compression, reduction, and synthesis of a massive body of research conducted over many years, a task that would seem to exceed the powers of a single scholar.CES is a major contribution to the history of economics that repays careful study and merits a disciplinary conversation. The present essay initiates this dialogue by considering four of Tribe's main themes and analyses: his explanation of Disziplinierung and Verwissenschaftlichung; his conception of Marshallianism; his claim that Marshall's achievements at Cambridge would not have been possible at Oxford; and, in rather more detail, his argument that the early Cambridge ascendancy was compromised by fundamental institutional flaws, as a result of which it was eclipsed by LSE by the late 1920s and 1930s.In arguing that Cambridge initiated the dynamic of Disziplinierung and Verwissenschaftlichung that created economic science, Tribe calls for a radical departure from standard narrative practices in the history of economics employed in the Anglophone sphere. If “institutions made ‘economics’ what it is today” (5), the orthodoxies of the history of economic thought and rational reconstruction are useless for his purposes. More often than not, the predictable clichés—“ideas in context” or “contextualization”—“turn out to mean nothing more than ‘other ideas’” (369). A putative historiography of rational reconstruction is arguably even more flawed because of its teleological assumptions and “presentist bias” (369), reading the economics of the past from the standpoint of ideas and methods currently regarded as sound.Employing narrative strategies that are now standard in science studies, Tribe conceives CES as an oppositional “historical reconstruction” of the mundane underpinnings of economic science, the “material context” or material culture that formed the original institutional conditions without which neither economic science in any sense nor the development of economic theory, high or low, would have been possible. In this reconstruction, the following elements, which are both logically and historically interdependent, prove to be most significant: (1) the dual role of economists as teachers—producers of students certified by examination as academically trained—and researchers who are certified as competent by publication in disciplinary journals; (2) a standardized pedagogical regime of syllabi, texts, and written examinations, performance on which decides success or failure in academic rituals of certification; (3) a division of labor produced by specialized research cast in an increasingly arcane language differentiated from the parlance of public discourse; (4) a predictable supply of students and methods of financing; (5) an academic labor market in which specialists compete for positions, a selection process of winnowing that determines who is granted professional salvation; (6) a disciplinary ethos defined by a culture of careerism that selects in favor of those who perform best in meeting disciplinary-specific expectations. Satisfaction of these six conditions by an emergent discipline forms a seventh element and is the basis of a disciplinary theology of self-validation, produced tautologically on the grounds of its own technical and methodological logic.Not differentiated in CES, elements 1–6 constitute what Tribe calls Disziplinierung; element 7 identifies Verwissenschaftlichung. Although they are the two pieces of conceptual apparatus that bear most weight in the book, he offers little by way of analysis of either. “Discipline” is defined in an early footnote (3–4). However, the “twin concepts” are never elucidated, and in making a case for his institutional chronology and the precedence of “non-cognitive conditions of the existence of knowledge” over “epistemologies” or an “epistemological perspective” (18–19), he handles the evidence for his Disziplinierung criteria with a light touch. In some one hundred pages of discussion on Cambridge (75–176), there is little evidence that the early Economics Tripos in fact met these conditions. For the most part, he tries only to show that this is what Marshall meant to achieve. To clarify Verwissenschaftlichung, he directs readers to Lutz Raphael's (1996) lengthy article in German. However, there is no analysis of Verwissenschaftlichung in Raphael's essay. Raphael discusses in broad terms numerous important historical cases of the application of disciplinary expertise and stresses its uses as a social technology in addressing problems created by the economy and the welfare state, chiefly in Germany but also in France, Britain, and the United States. Reading Raphael in order to clarify the meaning of Verwissenschaftlichung is a dead end.Does Tribe's minimalist explication of his analytical machinery actually damage his project? Perhaps not. In a public address in Munich on November 7, 1917, no less a figure than Max Weber presented an informal account of Disziplinierung and Verwissenschaftlichung as employed in CES, although he did not use these terms. This was “Science as a Vocation,” which became an instant classic in the German literature and, following its translation into English after World War II, a basis of subsequent work in the sociology of science (Weber 1946). Tribe's passing remark that Weber's “social and economic analysis suffuses” his book is not a ritualistic gesture (xi). The six elements that constitute his tacit analysis of Disziplinierung reproduce down to fine points of detail Weber's account of “modern science” in the first part of the lecture (Weber 1946: 129–34). As a political economist, he proposed to follow a “pedantic” practice of his discipline in beginning by considering “external conditions”—“the conditions of science as a vocation in the material sense of the term” (Weber 1946: 129). Tribe's account of Disziplinierung follows the main lines of Weber's discussion of these conditions. Once these external conditions are satisfied, the progress of science is locked into the logic of Disziplinierung. In one of his famously arresting metaphors, Weber claimed that science is “chained to the course of progress,” an implacable process of intellectual “rationalization” that systematically conceptualizes the world on the basis of the methods of science (Weber 1946: 137–39). Although Tribe resists the Weberian language of rationalization because of its teleological overtones, Verwissenschaftlichung is a rendition of Weber's idea of the “inner” or immanent intellectualization of the world that modern science produces. Both are a result of the Disziplinierung of science, in which a progressive specialization of expertise produces a science that neither requires nor acknowledges any validation beyond its own methods.2Tribe dismisses the idea of understanding Marshallianism as the theoretical program of Marshall's Principles—the book that, in Cambridge-insider historiography, laid the foundations of a “Cambridge tradition.” Instead, he treats it as a pedagogical scheme in which the master's purpose was to orient students to his conception of how economics should be studied and practiced—in essence, his view of the imperatives imposed on the professional socialization of the apprentice economist by a vocation in commerce, manufacture, or public administration (152, 171). Marshallian pedagogy would produce graduates with a socio-professional identity grounded in a distinctive conception of what it means to be an economist. Following this strategy, Tribe reviews the records of Pigou and Sidney Chapman as Marshall's students: what they learned from him and what they made of it. Although he insists that it is unnecessary to “‘intuit’ Marshall's ‘intentions’” or to determine “‘what he meant to do’” (76n3), this is what readers find in his exposition of Marshall's objectives as set out in his lectures on political economy and the inaugural lecture of 1885 (95–100). Here Tribe is engaged in a standard exercise in the history of ideas, a method in which he claims to see little value. It rests on “epistemologies” in which the historian supplies a context for one text by reading yet another.How could it be otherwise? A pedagogy presupposes pedagogical ideas and ideals. A Marshallian syllabus could not be understood or written without some plan indicating what it is expected to achieve. Pedagogy and analysis are not independently identifiable entities. If a specification of what qualifies as sound economic analysis is a logical condition for the possibility of pedagogy, it is mistaken to suppose that material and cognitive cultures are dichotomies or that the material is a noncognitive sphere of validation independent of a cognitive sphere of reasoning.In his various counterfactual claims regarding what would or would not have happened had Marshall not left Oxford for Cambridge, exactly what position is Tribe taking? Is it, as he sometimes claims, an impossibility thesis: the takeoff to economic science could not have begun at Oxford? Because of its governance and pedagogical structures, faculty organization, and intellectual traditions, “Oxford did not—could not—provide a platform upon which a new discipline of economics took shape” (193). Is it a much more modest claim: had Marshall remained at Oxford, he would have been unable to achieve his subsequent reputation (369)? Is it a probabilistic thesis: had Marshall become the Drummond at Oxford, his have a rather in which case “the early history of the discipline of economics would not have out the way it Is it a thesis: the conditions in Cambridge that to the in of the degree could not have been in Oxford” The probabilistic is a what and not, have It no for the history of The is to be of use for analytical purposes. The is a Although the impossibility is of it has little in CES and is compromised by by Tribe that he may subscribe to a his of the impossibility rests on an conditions at Oxford Marshall's Cambridge would have remained what they were with the single of who would have become at Oxford of at On Tribe's own would not have remained the his conception of Marshall's and to or in his In view of his claims the of the Oxford Politics, and Economics degree an Oxford of the Cambridge as well as the of and the of at Oxford in Cambridge, of Marshall's plan not because the and of institutional in his he had become an his to him what he that he If Marshall could at Cambridge to on the of why could he not have with at Oxford? Tribe's for that Marshall could not have at Oxford also seem to be why he should have at Cambridge, which of course he did not. Or did what is out as at Oxford? A economics degree the Cambridge Tripos as Marshall it as Tribe was unable to economics degree with elements of the Oxford which on Tribe's own account would not have from the Tripos that was actually between and What in Tribe's would have been to economic science at Oxford? In CES, these are not why was Cambridge the first university to economic Tribe's readers are left with Cambridge the only economics faculty Marshall's to in meeting Tribe's criteria for makes the case that this was Marshall's but not evidence that Cambridge Or were as Tribe also no other the field to Cambridge by in the of a new of economics because there never was a Tribe readers in the explanation of the rise of Cambridge to first he is regarding its and the why this seems to have been logic is (1) To a position in economic science, a faculty a structure making it possible to to (2) to a pedagogy that on lectures in which of students could be for and more specialized faculty and a supply of to more (3) Cambridge, were the main of which took place in not (4) Because Cambridge was locked into a and would be to be by an economics faculty in which in a to professional was the pedagogical Cambridge moment” is not an to the of J. The In Tribe's master narrative, Cambridge to fall and be to his frequent institutional and teleological The produced by to the Cambridge pedagogical were before Marshall's that even from its the Tripos could not be as the market of a progressive this we the two main historical of his college as the main system of Cambridge teaching and the pedagogical of Cambridge, were as a means of students for the Economics In that in economics or at students met their by either of other or who had no college The economic historian a of to that for some years he had students in University conducted for more than years even no college had granted a was a of in In was of any understanding of Marshallian and Keynes but very little economic an in and little interest in what to be as a of the theoretical of and had no expertise in In no was competent to the that students to in order to in the Tripos could of course independent of However, independent reading of did not were that Faculty Board were only for general were that were no way by these University see also In the Kahn, and at Keynes were Thus suggested that students become with their on In this lecture was a more than independent and for not to It was standard practice for Cambridge economists to lecture from in progress or Pigou on public for years before his classic on the A in In the 1920s, Keynes on issues to the on and the on and in the 1930s on The in the For a on the economics of the the subject of his In such it would have made little sense for students to from on the of Tripos the in question were not yet remained or had been to be understood by Tripos The Cambridge was formed in late as the and to understand on which had been and would be in their of Faculty Board the importance that the faculty to in 1938, they took in of lectures for and Tripos lecture were in faculty where of and or proposed by and these were by the which into the early the as the and were to on lectures and became The over the lectures of most and what was at If Cambridge lectures were why was there a over of lectures on Why did for a course on theory, proposed for and intended for much Why was Why was moved to a letter to the and another to and his that theory achieve “a of theoretical over the Why was Keynes by the that he his it and do the of evidence of on the part of the faculty regarding their to up their lectures to compete with other either in the United or they did not grounds for in this the they could of and to their position and early university to in economics were to those in place before the Pigou the only had been by would become the who had his teaching after the The were by college and teaching For a of this to Although there was a in the of new students the for the Board the Faculty Board was before that for of a high degree of had to the of and a of of Economics in the and the the Cambridge method of not on the university was from lecture since lecture were the Board could make only to what could on lecture created a since most students to a teaching to an of This structure was an to in of the Tripos, which produced the In the of the Board was and its scheme and were but not without much more from the the had left university in to reform Cambridge economics were of the Board in the of the Board of Board proposed a to this a system of at and use of the be to students who to for various economics The would a as the single of from for economics and any other the of the study and teaching of Economics in the would be at the of the of the Board in the of the Board of to the was to the University for discussion on the case for the Board that there was an for economics Keynes that they could not to the machinery of Cambridge had new were in of losing economists who were to positions The he was to the economics faculty at The was “a careful to problems in a subject for which the University had not been to make much and which was now of University Board had for a and the course of its from one body to University As and the and for that was the of the It was and by of the in A of the and the for the of an Economics in In a third in economics was established and filled by University of the was by and the “Cambridge School of had a cast of in a that they the basis of evidence at the progressive and academically and of were elements of the material context for the of economic As the Cambridge economists of the 1920s innovation in was to the of institutional Marshallianism and its to compete in the academic Why is CES on these to Tribe's account of Cambridge in the by and fall from not on the of the Board or the material context of their time as they understood it. It is on his conception of a Cambridge and its logical in his argument for the main of the On that the of economic science is a the of a discipline in which is to follow from the analytical produced by the discipline In its most it could be that economic is a and the economists who it are This a for the whose is to the of economics in the institutional of its Marshall to Cambridge economist between and the conception of economics by the Verwissenschaftlichung one made the Cambridge consensus of the 1920s on the and of economic analysis than Marshall's whose lectures on of economics were the basis of Tripos pedagogy in the The of an analysis is not by the logic of economic It is to economic and political conditions and by in their economic may prove to be and it is for who are in to make of their and the of their are the of this fact for Tribe's project? There seem to be two If and their in the 1920s regarded the immanent validation of economic analysis as a there was no Cambridge as Tribe it. In that the argument of CES Or suppose Tribe that, of how Cambridge economists understood their they were actually engaged in economic science as a in an and On this a of the of economic science and its history the achievements of Marshall and his students in a way that they did not and perhaps could not have as of a In that Tribe is no the of rational the of his he the conception of CES in of how this is the Keynes made to in that in Tribe's of Cambridge he a sound and in the and for the is another and for an as yet are to of University and the University of

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