The Fabric of Economics and the Golden Threads of G. L. S. Shackle

The title of this chapter is intended to suggest that the long history of our discipline, whatever we choose to tell others, has historically been something different from an efficient linear search for scientific ‘cause and effect’ first principles. The body of economic knowledge as we know it, I propose, should be imagined as a tapestry, or, better yet, considering our propensity for wiping our feet on the past, as an oriental rug. It is a rug woven by different generations of thinkers and doers, each working within the framework of the facts and ideas of his or her time, and each hoping that from observation and/or excogitation some immutables could be distilled and put to permanent use.