|Peter Boettke|
Jeff Tucker, as he has for over 20 years, continues to enrich the world by making sure that no classic text in economics goes unavailable to new generations of readers. Jeff's role in the world-wide spread of market oriented thinking and Austrian ideas in particular cannot be overstated. LFB has just reprinted in an eBook version Philip Wicksteed's classic text The Common Sense of Political Economy. This edition contains not only Lionel Robbins excellent introduction from the 1932 edition, but also Israel Kirzner's essay on Wicksteed as the British Austrian, and appreciations by Jeff and also myself of Wicksteed classic work and its place within the economics literature.
My contribution was also published at the LFB website.
Wicksteed is a great read for anyone who loves economics, and anyone who is struggling with economics Wicksteed might actually provide the "cure" to that problem and help you fall in love with the beautiful logic of economic reasoning.
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.
Posted by: Ronald | January 30, 2013 at 02:42 AM
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.
Posted by: GregRansom | January 30, 2013 at 08:18 PM
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.
Posted by: Thinkmarkets.wordpress.com | January 31, 2013 at 12:33 PM
Apart from Robbins, I recall he also had a big influence on Gary Becker.
Posted by: Péter Isztin | January 31, 2013 at 04:15 PM
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.
Posted by: Peter Boettke | January 31, 2013 at 08:12 PM
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
Posted by: Thinkmarkets.wordpress.com | February 01, 2013 at 08:57 AM
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.
Posted by: Per Bylund | February 03, 2013 at 07:53 PM