The Anti‐Historicism of Professor Schumpeter*

Abstract

was invited to contribute a systematic statement on theory. Joseph A. Schumpeter undertook to furnish a of the history of doctrine and methods. The sketch was the Epochen der Dogman und Methodengeschichte,l which has been made available to English readers. The History of Economic Analysis, a posthumous publication, is an outgrowth and expansion of the older essay. Economic Doctrine and Method deals with the progress of economics as a science and particularly with the historical sequence in which economic theories have developed. Successive doctrines are viewed as progressive expansions, clarifications and refinements of one another in an evolution toward a 'pure' science of economics. But the main theme of the book is that the succession of economic doctrines is to be understood wholly in terms of the 'internal' logical requirements of the theories themselves and without reference to 'external' influences of contemporary thought and problems of the economic world. Economics has a history in the sense of an immanent intellectual development, and this development is independent of the social situation and the pressure of public needs. It is because Schumpeter separates the form and content of economic theory from the political and social process that his approach may be characterized as unhistorical. The development of economics as a science and the historical sequence of doctrines is little influenced by group interests and class conflict. It is not with the social origins of economic theories that Schumpeter is concerned, or with their functional adequacy, but with their internal structure and logical continuity. Schumpeter's methodological formalism leads to a separation of theory