So, What Did Marx “Really” Mean? The Methodenstreit between Baumol and Samuelson on the History of Economic Thought

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the clash between William Baumol’s and Paul Samuelson’s different approaches to the history of economic thought, disguised as a debate on the Marxian transformation problem on the pages of the Journal of Economic Literature in 1974. The published papers were the result of an intense exchange of letters that shows how the debate on the transformation problem is just the surface: the debate originated from the authors’ different approaches to the history of economic thought. Samuelson applied his famous “Whig” history of economics to suggest that Marx had little to nothing to offer to modern theorists, while Baumol was interested in the past authors’ theoretical and moral intentions. Baumol and Samuelson’s Methodenstreit resulted in two different visions of Marx, and there is evidence that they kept their different approaches for their entire career.

Citation

Noci, A. (2022), "So, What Did Marx “Really” Mean? The Methodenstreit between Baumol and Samuelson on the History of Economic Thought", Fiorito, L., Scheall, S. and Suprinyak, C.E. (Ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on the Work of William J. Baumol: Heterodox Inspirations and Neoclassical Models (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 40B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 133-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542022000040B011