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« Living Economics Podcast at EconTalk | Main | FSSO Award to Israel M. Kirzner »

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As i am a writer and interested in economics this is one great news for me , i am a big fan of him, would like to get the edition as soon as possible, can any one help me to get this.

It has been persuasively argued that Wicksteed's *Common Sens* played the central role in the thinking behind Robbins' massively influential *Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science* which makes Wicksteed a central player in the making of the still contemporary vision of the task of economic science.

Most of us think that Wicksteed was a free-market kind of guy. But the reality is that he saw plenty wrong with the market. The famous chapter on the "economic nexus" makes that clear, if you read beyond the first few pages. Wicksteed was, no doubt, a brilliant economist but he was also a Unitarian minister with a strong moralistic streak.

Apart from Robbins, I recall he also had a big influence on Gary Becker.

Yes Mario, Wicksteed is not an advocate of laissez faire, but his economic analysis of decision-making on the margin, of the pricing process, of the origins of social cooperation under the division of labor, It is his positive analysis and methodology that is so attractive, not his necessarily his policy preferences.

Oh yes. I did not mean to imply anything else. I especially like his brilliant treatment of rationality and the principle of price. Although Becker's work bears a strong similarity to Wicksteed's treatment of rationality,Becker did not get it directly from Wicksteed. Or so I have gathered from an email exchange with Becker.

Mario Rizzo

I agree with both Mario and Pete. It doesn't matter, of course, if Wicksteed was a proponent of laissez faire or not. What matters is that he was a great economist. And, as such, he should be celebrated. One's political persuasion does not necessarily affect one's economics; for instance, I have found much use of both Marx's and Durkheim's economic writing in my own work though I hardly subscribe to their politics.

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