Purpose of the lecture series
DEPE lectures introduce novel ways of thinking about the history of political and economic thought. They situate political and economic thought in broader cultural, political and intellectual settings, hence going beyond standard canonical histories that have dominated these fields for too long. In addition, the DEPE lectures explore the possibilities of combining the study of history of political thought and the history of economic thought.
If you can't attend in person but want to follow the lecture remotely, please contact Ere Nokkala (ere.p.nokkala@jyu.fi) by April 3rd.
About the lecture
"David Ricardo has long been seen as a canonical figure in the history of economic thought, although as Mark Blaug pointed out in the first scholarly biography of Ricardo, “Ricardian economics” was a spent force by the 1830s, just a decade after his death in 1823. My presentation will examine how the modern reputation of Ricardo was created subsequent to the reputation he enjoyed in the last decade of his life. I will examine the role played by the publication of his Works and Correspondence in the early 1950s and the work of its editor, Piero Sraffa; and the widespread belief that he initiated modern international trade theory in Ch. VI of his Principles of Political Economy (1817).
My purpose is however not merely to recalibrate our understanding of Ricardo, an exercise in historical correction. By understanding rather better how Ricardo’s modern reputation has been forged, I seek to shift our attention away from these fictions to how the work of Ricardo was apprehended at the time: what it might have meant to Ricardo himself, what it meant to those of his contemporaries who took an interest in what he said and wrote, and how they incorporated this response into their public policy arguments. The latter should command our primary attention, since by understanding the contingent construction of opinion and argument we can learn broader lessons."
– Keith Tribe
Brian H. Pollitt, “The Collaboration of Maurice Dobb in Sraffa's Edition of Ricardo”, Cambridge Journal of Economics Vol. 12 (1988) pp. 55-65.
John Pullen, “Did Ricardo Really Have a Law of Comparative Advantage? A Comparison of Ricardo’s Version and the Modern Version”, History of Economics Review 44.1 (2016) pp. 59-75.
Gilbert Faccarello, “A Calm Investigation into Mr Ricardo’s Principles of International Trade” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought Vol. 22 (2015) pp. 754–790.
About the lecturer
Keith Tribe is Senior Researcher in History at the Ģֱ, where he has joined Ere Nokkala’s ERC project studying the politics and economics of Sweden in the long eighteenth-century. He is an economic historian and translator who has published widely in the history of economic discourse. A specialist in German economic discourse since the early eighteenth century, he also made the first translation of Reinhart Koselleck’s work into English (Futures Past, MIT Press, 1985/Columbia University Press, 2004), and the first translations into English from Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. His recent publications include an edition of Max Weber, Economy and Society. A New Translation (Harvard University Press, 2019), and Constructing Economic Science. The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950 (Oxford University Press, 2022). The latter won the Blanqui Prize awarded by the European Society of Economic Thought for the best monograph in the history of economic thought in 2022.
Funded by the European Union (ERC, DEPE, 101088549). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
