Typologies and Evidence

ATTEMPTS to systematize the economic record of history and to draw from it general observations of the nature and causes of change are not new. In this respect Marx not only established a doctrine but also helped to found a tradition, and there were various members of the German historical school of economists, before and after i900, who maintained the search for universal schemes. But the last thirty years have seen a great increase in this type of work. In part this has been an offshoot of the new urgency of interest in promoting economic development where it was previously unknown, and the consequent search for guidance wherever there seemed a reasonable chance of finding it. There has also been increased reliance on comparative methods by historians seeking to achieve a cross-fertilization of explanatory ideas. For both purposes it is desirable, for the first purpose essential, that any historical generalizations called into aid should be not only true of several particular instances but should be very widely applicable. It could be harmfully misleading if what looked to be proclamations of universal relationships turned out to be no more than accounts of one or two highly individual cases, disguised in the language of generality. All the chief schemes expounding alleged universalities in the history of economic growth have received plenty of criticism, both appreciative and hostile, but it is doubtful whether they have often been starkly confronted by the question whether the evidence they use is comprehensive enough to provide a secure foundation of genuine history for edifices as vast as they have grown to be. They have been challenged on grounds of unclarity or inappropriateness in their basic concepts, or because they have been inaccurate on some specific points, or because some particular case may be more convincingly interpreted by postulating a different chain of causation. Criticism, that is, has mainly been within the terms of reference employed by the schemes under criticism. It is understandable that generalization about the development of modern industrial societies should have begun on a limited base. The remarkable transformation of Britain cried out for detailed study, and received it while several other countries had begun a course with obvious similarities but none had completed it. The idea of a norm was thus established and no later student could get away from it without conscious effort. Moreover, for the earlier writers the British experience was necessarily a far bigger proportion of the relevant data than it has since become, even though, like Marx, they were

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• The Great Depression and Austrian Growth after 1873

  Open Access•David F Good•The Economic History Review•1978

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