“GORKY” COMMENTS ON “ECONOMIC THOUGHT: A BRIEF HISTORY” BY HEINZ KURZ PUBLISHED BY THE GAIDAR INSTITUTE

An attempt to present the history of Western economic theories from Plato to the present day on three hundred pages, undertaken by Heinz Kurz, Professor of economics at the Austrian University of Graz, ("Economic Thought: a brief history"), leaves a paradoxical feeling of fundamental innuendo.

Despite the fact that the author focused on most of the key figures in the history of economic science with his German pedantry, there are scattered doubts between the lines of the Kurz book here and there that "pure" economic theory is basically able to adequately grasp its subject. Many challenges pitched regularly to economists by the world economy in these days, i.e. an irreversible increase in inequality, total financialisation of the real sector, trade and sanctions wars, unpredictable volatility of markets, etc., suggest the same idea. However, Kurz also has to admit that after the global crisis of 2008, many mainstream theories have proven useless. The idea of "economic man", homo economicus, just as it was included in the standard textbooks on economics, has clearly exhausted itself, but is not yet ready to die in peace.

The full text of the review can be found here.