Jevons and Menger re-homogenized? Jaffe after 20 years: a comment on Peart - response to S. Peart in this issue, p. 307

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  July, 1998  by F.V. Comim

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Sandra J. Peart's paper on the re-homogenization of Jevons and Menger delves with lucid understanding into the history of marginalism. It should be read with attention and acknowledged as an independent argument in the debate about the marginalist movement. Initially, the article might be understood as an attempt to reassess Jaffe's thesis on the de-homogenization of Walras, Menger, and Jevons through a more accurate reading of the nature of economic man in Jevons. This interpretation could be justified by the view that the originality of the article lies in its emphasis on the commonalities between Jevons and Menger that Jaffe's argument neglects. However, as it stands, the article raises an issue analytically distinct from that of Jaffe's that ultimately addresses the problem of the gulf between theory and practice in the history of marginalism. To discuss the nature and significance of the article's contribution, an important distinction must be made concerning the fact that the three theses that have been put forward by historians to appraise the relevance of marginalism (homogenization, de-homogenization, and re-homogenization), have all been formulated with distinct purposes.

The homogenization thesis has not been postulated as such, but is represented here by the conventional view, as Coats (1972, p. 304) argues, that "the combined achievements of Jevons, Menger, and Walras in the early 1870's did constitute a significant intellectual breakthrough in the development of economic analysis and may be regarded as revolutionary in their implications, if not in their novelty or in the speed of diffusion." The thesis has been conceived mainly with the alternative purposes of (a) expressing the conception of science as "tooled knowledge" (Schumpeter 1954), (b) making a historiographic distinction between classical and neoclassical theories (Dasgupta 1985; Winch 1972), and (c) emphasizing the changes in the scope and methodology of economics derived from the works of Jevons, Walras, and Menger (Deane 1978; Mirowski 1988). The common ground among these alternative versions of the homogenization thesis is the recognition of an identifiable discontinuity in economic thought associated with marginal analysis as an analytical technique. It is typical of the homogenization approach to marginalism to consider Menger "the odd man out" among the triumvirate. For instance, it is only through the exclusion of Menger's contribution that Mirowski (1988, p. 12) can argue that "the most discontinuous aspect of the 'marginalist revolution' was the successful penetration of mathematical discourse into economic theory." Emphasis on the commonalities among the three authors is a necessary step in the framing of some of the above questions.

The relevance of Jaffe's (1976) thesis on the de-homogenization of marginalism lies not only on its appeal for an examination of the differences among the works of Menger, Jevons and Walras but also mainly on its claim for a change in the purpose of the historiographic investigation, one that emphasizes a proper characterization of the individual contributions. It is because of this ultimate change in purpose - a change that privileges knowledge-structures ("theoretical edifices") and theoretical influences rather than the use of analytical tools - that Jaffe claims that the differences among Menger, Jevons and Walras are more important than their commonalities. Some of these differences had been previously addressed by Jaffe (1972) in an article in which, following Schumpeter, he argued that Walras's use of the marginal analysis as part of his competitive market model, distinguishes him from his co-revolutionaries. As historians had already considered Menger apart from the other two, Jaffe's (1976) original contribution consisted of a clear definition of the new historiographic problem and an illumination of the contrasts between Jevons and Walras, leading him to argue that (p. 518) "not only was Jevons's approach entirely different from that of Walras, but his point of departure also" - a just claim within (but only within) the context he had settled.

With this focus, Peart's argument for re-homogenization should be understood not only as a general framework for the assessment of Jevons's contribution to marginalism but also as a definition of a new historiographic problem. From this perspective, the strong disagreement between Jaffe and Peart concerning the relation between Menger and Jevons is not of paramount importance. As long as Peart organizes her comparison of the authors mostly around the theory-practice distinction, she is exploring a different thesis that is in some aspects incommensurable with other arguments based on different analytical purposes. The aspects Peart highlights in comparing Menger and Jevons are not precisely the same as those discussed by Jaffe. For instance, while Jaffe (1976) observes the differences between Menger and Jevons on the issues of (a) treatment of the structure of wants in relation to evaluation (p. 519); (b) equilibrium (p. 520); (c) hedonist psychology (p. 521); (d) use of mathematics (p. 521); and (e) notion of causality (p. 521-522), Peart documents their similarities on the issues of (a) consumer behavior; (b) treatment of complexity; and (c) distinction between theory and practice.