ABSTRACT
As Professor Morishima tells the reader in the preface, ‘this volume is not primarily a book on history of economic analysis but a reappraisal of past great economists from the viewpoint of contemporary economic theory’ (p. vii).1 Together with Marx’s Economics (1973) and Walras’ Economics (1977) it forms a trilogy. Originally intending to conclude with a book on Keynes, Professor Morishima instead chose to write on Ricardo because the latter was ‘Marx’s and Walras’ common guru’ and thus occupies an important place in the history of the emergence of economic ideas. More particularly, Ricardo, who advocated ‘Say’s law of markets’, seems to be the natural author to start with in order to study the ‘transition’ to Keynes, who rejected the law. It is indeed the investigation of this transition which forms the main concern of Ricardo’s Economics (p. viii). Therefore, the book is almost as much about Marx, Walras and Keynes as it is about Ricardo.
