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Economics 329
Against this background, the ‘new economics’ was forced to relinquish the
idea of a self-operating mechanism of adaptation, and introduce a new factor
into economic reasoning- the State. In maintaining that his theory applied only in
conditions of unemployment and that, under full employment, the neo-classical
approach (which regarded the automatism of the market process as sacred) would
again become valid, Keynes was less propounding a scientifically-based concept
than demonstratinghis attachment to tradition andthe ideologyassociated with it.
In considering questions of long-term economic dynamics, economics must
have resort to the other human sciences and - especially when production tech-
nology trends in the widest sense are concerned - to the natural and technical
sciences - as can be seen even in growth theory studies on the second group of
problems mentioned above (the identification and quantification of the func-
tional relationships that exist between the variations of different growth factors,
and the corresponding variations in the volume and structure of output). This is
the realm of mathematical growth models, whose validity is too often rated
according to the degree of formalization and the complexity of the mathematical
apparatus. Even the most (mathematically) complex models, however, fail to
yield categorical conclusions on any substantive question, providing instead,
findings of the type: ‘Assuming a given character of the relationships between the
variables, and a given behaviour of the independent variables, the dynamic
process wil take such and such a course’.
For the sake of methodology, progress is obviously very important here.
Methods for treating increasingly complex relationships are particularly needed,
e.g. models for the different production sectors, instead of models confined as
hitherto to aggregate national income only. However, the main problem lies
elsewhere.
It is contained in the first and third of the problems listed above (I) the iden-
tification and classification of the factors which directly or indirectly determine
the growth of output and effect changes in its structure; (3) the investigation of
the sources and trends of change in the factors of growth), and hence, in the anal-
ysis of circumstances which are not amenable to treatment in an econometric
model, and cannot be reduced to a single set of assumptions. Contemporary
economics must therefore strive to process data which reflect changes in large
social structures, taken in their entirety; hence it must seek to join forces with
other disciplines, and especially the social sciences, to an extent that has not taken
place except in sporadic instances during the past few decades. For this purpose,
economics does not have to merge with sociology, psychology, anthropology,
the theory of law, politics, and so on; nor does it have to become a passive con-
sumer vis-&-vis the technical sciences, or passively accept certain applications of
the natural sciences (incidentally, economic considerations have undoubtedly
influenced the research interests of scientists in various domains, though never
sufficiently). What economists must do is to extend their interest to include
findings of other sciences which are relevant to them, devote more attention than
they have done hitherto to problems that lie between the traditionally delimited
frontiers of other disciplines, and invite specialists from other disciplines to co-
operate with them in solving complex problems.