ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a short account of what is both historically and methodologically a very complex, challenging and extensive set of issues. It emphasises the historical dimension of the connection between the quest for initially the quantification of socio-economic phenomena and the ensuing search for 'social laws' which sought to be articulated in a mathematical mode in an attempt to capture the essential features of the pivotal socio-economic relationships and underlying mechanisms. The chapter provides an overview of the phases of the interactive development of the relations between the construction of political economy as a discipline and its quest for a format of presentation which would establish its greater coherence, intellectual rigour, scientific status and relevance to socio-economic policy. It traces a 'lineage' in the complex trajectory of the 'mathematization' of political economy, a number of key strands of developments within the 'melting pot' are central to our endeavour.
