ABSTRACT
The practical and the aesthetic case for treating economics as a discipline on its own rests on the notion of exchange in the market. It is this which binds together the rival interests of individuals, and likewise of firms and nations, into reconciled specialization. The practice of treating economics as a self-subsistent science would be astounding to a Renaissance scholar. The difficulty of demarcation between economics and politics is perhaps as great, and of greater practical consequence. The influence of economics upon politics can be greater and more terrible than the mere inducement of inflation. In 1930 to 1932 the German, as well as the British, government sought to cure deepening business depression and unemployment by reducing government expenditure. Economics was denied the experimental method. Economics is the supremely ingenious device for eliciting scalar quantity from vast heterogeneous assemblies of qualitatively incommensurable things.
