Álvarez & Pérez-Montiel (2024): "On the Capital Controversies as a Choice of Paradigms", in: Science, Technology and Innovation in the History of Economic Thought, 207-228
Abstract: Conventional economic theory is typically characterised as a framework based on supply and demand functions aimed at explaining prices, output levels, and the remuneration of productive factors. However, this theoretical framework faced significant criticism during the Capital Debates, or Cambridge–Cambridge Controversies (CCC), of the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter examines the origins and development of the CCC, as well as the reasons why the debate seemingly came to an end in the late 1960s and has since largely faded from mainstream economic discourse. To do so, the chapter draws on Thomas S. Kuhn’s characterisation of the history of scientific thought, presenting the controversy as a genuine confrontation between competing paradigms. It argues that the failure of the CCC to trigger a scientific revolution capable of undermining the neoclassical hegemony in economic theory cannot be explained solely in terms of the logical consistency of the competing approaches, but rather reflects the limited communicability and inherent circularity between distinct economic paradigms.