Samuelson, Friedman’s main rival, drove economics’ postwar mathematicization
Evidence
Ultimately, though, Friedman’s “Methodology of Positive Economics” was oriented not to the philosophy of science but to economics,” and his stance provoked sharp debate within the profession. The best-known opponent of Friedman’s position was Paul Samuelson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) and other works, Samuelson played a big part in the mathematicization of economics in the postwar United States. He wrote the discipline’s definitive postwar textbook (Economics, which sold some 4 million copies”), and in 1970 he was the third recipient of the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Samuelson ended his Nobel Prize lecture by quoting the economist H. J. Davenport: “There is no reason why theoretical economics should be a monopoly of the reactionaries.” (Samuelson 1971, p. 287) Samuelson seemed to share, at least in part, the suspicion of some of Friedman’s critics that Friedman’s methodological views were also political, a way of defending what Samuelson called “the perfectly competitive laissez faire model of economics.” — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 57
Categorization
- XREF: Sets up the Friedman-Samuelson methodological contest relevant to the book’s treatment of how theory legitimates markets. — connects to: Samuelson’s mathematized economics rivaled Friedman’s instrumentalist methodology — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 57; Mathematical economics displaced descriptive institutional study of finance in the US — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 304
Broader Connections
- Samuelson’s mathematized economics rivaled Friedman’s instrumentalist methodology
#expands(0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 57 - Mathematical economics displaced descriptive institutional study of finance in the US
#exemplifies(0.72) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 304