Review of “From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the Social and Historical Evolution of Economic Theory”

Review of Milonakis and Fine

From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the Social and Historical Evolution of
Economic Theory. By Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine 374pp, London and New
York, Routledge, 2009. And From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The
Shifting Boundaries between Economic and other Social Sciences. By Ben Fine and
Dimitris Milonakis” 200pp. London and New York, Routledge, 2009.

In this review, I consider two books, From Political Economy to Economics and
From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics, which are part of a trilogy of books on
the economics profession by Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine, (The third, forthcoming
book is entitled Reinventing of Economic Past: Method and Theory in the Evolution of
Economic History.) In these two books the authors explore numerous issues in the history
of economic thought and economic methodology. In doing so, their goal is, as they tell
the reader in the preface to From Political Economy to Economics, “the rediscovery of
the political economy of the past in its social, historical and methodological richness, and
the corresponding rejuvenation of the political economy of the future.” Their approach is
sweeping; they cover an enormous breadth of material, some broadly and some in minute
detail. Both books are insightful, and reasonable; I found myself agreeing with much of
what the authors argue.

Political Economic To Economics: Method, the Social and Historical Evolution of
Economic Theory consists of 15 chapters. After an introductory chapter outlining their
arguments, the various chapters go through the ideas of Smith, Ricardo, Mill and Marx,
the German historians, marginalism and the methodenstreit, Marshall, British historical
economics, Veblen and American institutionalism, the social economics of Weber and

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