The convoluted influence of Robbins’s thinking on the emergence of Economics Imperialism

This article analyses the influence of Robbins’s thought on the subsequent development of economics imperialism. First, the analysis of some passages that have been overlooked up to the present, in which the author explicitly expresses his disbelief in the omnipotence of the economic method, makes it possible to argue that Robbins did not share the confidence exhibited by the advocates of economics imperialism in the capacity of economics to explain non-economic phenomena. Second, this article shows that Robbins describes the influence of real scarcity on human behaviour in terms of a (static) constrained maximization problem, thereby confusing issues of method and scope in his writings. This confusion facilitated the view that economics is a method without a proper subject matter and its later expansion into other fields. In conclusion, although Robbins cannot be counted as an earlier promoter of economics imperialism, the misunderstandings implicit in his writings paved the way for the emergence of this intellectual movement.