Six titans of the Cambridge School: a review article

(Reviewing: Great Thinker in Economics, Series Editor, A. P. Thirlwall, selection consisting of P. Groenewegen, Alfred Marshall, 2007; P. Davidson, John Maynard Keynes, 2007, 2009; G. Fletcher, Dennis Robertson, 2008; A. Roncaglia, Piero Sraffa, 2009; G. C. Harcourt and P. Kerr, Joan Robinson, 2009; J. E. King, Nicholas Kaldor, 2009, Palgrave Macmillan) Six volumes in the Great Thinker in Economics Series were chosen by the Editors for this review, which focuses on The Cambridge School of Economics, so very different from the mainstream theory of general economic equilibrium which gives formal expression to Lionel Robbins' famous definition of the subject as the allocation of scarce means among alternative uses. In recognition of a distinct Cambridge School, the authors of these volumes present a variety of arguments within which three overlapping themes can be discerned: the relationship between ethics and economics; the role of stocks and flows in economic analysis; and the epistemic problem surrounding the role of creativity, which has eluded the skills of formalists. The once pervasive influence of Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Dennis Robertson, Piero Sraffa, Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor can only be recovered with some such set of general themes in mind. Copyright The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.