History of Economic Analysis part 3. At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter-one of the major figures in economics during the first half of the 20th century-was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of humankind's theoretical efforts to understand economic phenomena from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. | based as it was on a sophisticated Continental Catholicism not only left Robbins cold but clearly he paid no attention to it. In general Robbins thought that Schumpeter s bias against classical economics reflected the feelings of someone outside the true Utilitarian tradition. Robbins wrote that Schumpeter s perception of the influence of Bentham s and James Mills Utilitarianism was distorted most English writers were more balanced in their assumptions of the meaning and consequence of that doctrine. However it is when Robbins sets out to demolish Schumpeter s scaler system of hero ratings that he scores his truest hits. Robbins s approach is to attack first the textual validity of Schumpeter s assertions 1 of Smith s place in the scheme of things 2 of Ricardo s influence 3 of Cournot s analytical skills and 4 of Marshall s writings and influence and second to demonstrate that Schumpeter s treatment of Walras was biased in the other direction. Schumpeter according to Robbins clearly did not apply the same rigor in assessing Walras as he did elsewhere Robbins 1955 pp. 4-5 . Clearly what Robbins dismissed was the basic Schumpeterian schema which separated what went earlier from the economics of the British classical school-giving to the former the split between real philosopher theologians and mere pamphleteers. The main casualty was Adam Smith s reputation put against such philosopher theologians as Plato Aristotle and Aquinas Smith becomes a small potato. Schumpeter s implication never really stated that Ricardo had a good bit of the pamphleteer in his writings tended further to denigrate his opinion of the majesty of the British contribution. But it would be an error to conclude that the thoughtful Robbins was unimpressed with what Schumpeter had to say in 400 pages about the classical British tradition. Robbins lauded Schumpeter s treatment of economics since 1870 but noted rather trenchantly that in contrast to Schumpeter s rule individual writers not the .
