An unusual sociologist Geoffrey Ingham, and two unknown famous economists (On the book "Money. Ideology, history, politics" by G. Ingham)

In: Voprosy ėkonomiki: ežemesjačnyj žurnal, Heft 6, S. 135-149

Abstract

The article deals with the episodes in the three-century confrontation between the account-debt institutional and the commodity theory of money. The former is rarely discussed; and the ideas of G. Ingham can be considered as a such modern episode. The commodity theory of money continues to dominate in university textbooks. The article analyzes the fate of two books by J. M. Keynes and J. Schumpeter as an example. It shows the connection of the two theories of money with two opposite methodological approaches, namely, a priori-abstract, based on assumptions, and historical-experimental, based on facts. The first of these was clearly identified by J. S. Mill at the beginning of the institutionalization of the academic/university economist profession and continues to dominate this profession to this day. The second was developed in the German historico-ethical school headed by G. Schmoller and in the community of American original institutionalism, the most consistent representatives of which were J. Commons and his students.