# Identifications & Discussion Questions 2.1.5-8

Imperialisms, Ancient and Modern, Identifications & Discussion Questions, 2.1.5 to 2.1.8. Latin.

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Schumpeter's vast erudition is apparent in his posthumous History of Economic Analysis, although some of his judgments seem quite idiosyncratic and sometimes cavalier. For instance, Schumpeter thought that the greatest 18th century economist was Turgot, not Adam Smith, as many consider. Some of these judgments are partly explained by his opinion that there is one general system of economic analysis, and Léon Walras found it. Other economists are rated by how much of Walras' theory could be read into them. Schumpeter criticized John Maynard Keynes and David Ricardo for the "Ricardian vice". According to Schumpeter, Ricardo and Keynes reasoned in terms of abstract models, where they would freeze all but a few variables. Then they could argue that one caused the other in a simple monotonic fashion. This led to the belief that one could easily deduce policy conclusions directly from a highly abstract theoretical model. Business cycles Schumpeter's relationships with the ideas of other economists were quite complex in his most important contributions to economic analysis - the theory of business cycles and development. Following neither Walras nor Keynes, Schumpeter starts in The Theory of Economic Development with a treatise of circular flow which, excluding any innovations and innovative activities, leads to a stationary state. The stationary state is, according to Schumpeter, described by Walrasian equilibrium. The hero of his story, though, is, in fine Austrian fashion, the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur disturbs this equilibrium and is the cause of economic development, which proceeds in cyclic fashion along several time scales. In fashioning this theory connecting innovations, cycles, and development, Schumpeter kept alive the Russian communist Nikolai Kondratiev's ideas on 50-year cycles, Kondratieff Waves.

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