ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that ‘the Cambridge approach to economics’ is a legacy with many threads. Several aspects of method, ‘style’ and content of the economics associated with the Cambridge tradition, whose imprinting is to be traced to Marshall, make it well recognizable, when compared with so-called ‘mainstream’ economics and other schools of thought.
The ‘style’ aspect of the Cambridge economists as a group lies in the particular type of communication – written and oral – that led to very close forms of interaction, not devoid of diversity and dissent; in physical and temporal closeness. This chapter investigates the features of this approach under the headings of divergences, differences and communalities.
The Cambridge tradition rests on two pillars. The first is a rejection of the ‘classical’ conclusion that market forces are always at work to bring the economic system to full employment of resources, implicated by the belief that there is no discontinuity between individual and aggregate behaviour. The second is the Sraffian theme that the market, taken as synonymous with supply and demand, is a misleading arena for the representation of the rules of production and distribution. Both pillars are needed to travel the road towards an alternative economic theory and economic policy.
