I think that you could add a third dimension -- style. The populists, Ricardian socialists, Wright Patman ... were all radical in style, although many -- especially the agrarian populists -- tended to look back to a Adam Smith world of small capitalism. While this sort of politics may be reactionary, it lends fuel to radical causes sometimes.
In the case of Lange, I do not know that he was radical in style at all. I am not sure that he got involved in any radical movements & his methodology (as Mirowski shows) helped to fuel the modern market friendly world we live in today. On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 08:18:08PM +0000, Mohammad Maljoo wrote: > Daniel Davies wrote: > > <<I would potentially call Austrian economists "radical economists", but I > realise that at this point I am stretching ordinary usage much too far.>> > > > It seems to me that one had better distinguish between methodology and > ideology. Oskar Lange was radical in ideology but non-radical in > methodology. On the contrary, Austrian economists are radical in their > methodology but non-radical in their ideology. One can consider even a few > Chicago- school economists as radicals with respect to economic methodology. > For example, think about Deirdre McCloskey�s _The Vices of Economists, The > Virtues of the Bourgeisie_ in which she holds that most of economics since > the War has to be done over again, thinking the problem is that methods > rather than ideology in economics are wrong and produce wrong result, > thereby strongly believing that markets and capitalism are not evil. I see > her as radical with respect to methodology despite her capitalism-oriented > approach. > > Mohammad Maljoo > > _________________________________________________________________ > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > http://search.msn.com/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
