Friedman’s positive economics defended Marshall’s engine-like analytic approach

Evidence

Friedman saw himself as defending the legacy of the great British economist Alfred Marshall, for example against the accounts of “imperfect” or “monopolistic” competition put forward by E. H. Chamberlin and Joan Robinson (Friedman 1953a, pp. 38-39). The sentence that I have drawn on in this book’s title invokes Marshall: “Marshall took the world as it is; he sought to construct an `engine’ to analyze it, not a photographic reproduction of it.” — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1392

Categorization

• XREF: This is the titular metaphor of the whole book — the engine-versus-photograph distinction is the core frame for the performativity thesis being unpacked throughout. — connects to: Friedman’s influence grew from applying one analytic toolkit to many policy proposals — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 465; Friedman claimed positive economics could resolve policy disputes by eliminating value differences — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 405; Friedman’s methodology defended perfect competition by prioritizing aggregate prediction over individual descriptive accuracy. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 407 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘engine, not a camera’ framing that the book’s entire argument hangs on.
• QUESTION: Would be worth tracing how far Friedman’s position on the engine metaphor actually goes versus how the performativity thesis extends it.