What Don't Economists Know Now that Marshall Knew a Century Ago?

Abstract

In the twentieth century economics has been dominated by the idea that rigorous thinking is limited to the natural sciences. This belief has gotten in the way of contemporary economists' understanding of Marshall's legacy. Marshall conceived of economics as a science of complexity. Hence he considered essential to take into account the institutional and behavioral peculiarities that often require the close attention to empirical details that the Walrasian approach neglected. Marshall held that the appropriate style for economics to deal with economic complexity should be made of different languages. Classical mathematical language alone cannot grasp the complexity of the real economy by itself because it plots precisely defined conceptual borders where in the real world the borders are uncertain and the concepts ill-defined and unable to be captured in one precise definition.