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Francesco Boldizzoni, The poverty of Clio: Resurrecting economic history

Article in The Review of Austrian Economics · March 2013

DOI: 10.1007/s11138-013-0223-y

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Francesco Boldizzoni, The poverty of Clio:
Resurrecting economic history

Pencho Denchev Penchev

The Review of Austrian Economics

ISSN 0889-3047
Volume 28
Number 1

Rev Austrian Econ (2015) 28:119-122

DOI 10.1007/s11138-013-0223-y

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 Author's personal copy
Rev Austrian Econ (2015) 28:119–122
DOI 10.1007/s11138-013-0223-y

Francesco Boldizzoni, The poverty of Clio: Resurrecting

economic history
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. xi + 228 Pages.
USD 39.50 (cloth)

Pencho Denchev Penchev

Published online: 27 April 2013

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Francesco Boldizzoni’s new book, “The Poverty of Clio: Resurrecting Economic

History” seeks to push back against the growing imperialism of cliometrics.
Boldizzoni sees this as a threat because “the (unconfessed) aim of cliometrics is not to
increase our knowledge of the past” (p. 5), but to endorse specific worldviews and policy
recommendations. “The cliometric threat” is not just a threat to the field of economic
history. Much of the current economic history work being published in the leading
journals is just the application or verification of institutionally sterile neoclassical
economic theory models. The collection and processing of their own databases, calcu-
lation and recalculation of GDP for various regions and more distant periods of the past,
the comparison of wages, etc. has become a major preoccupation of economic histo-
rians. It guarantees publications in prestigious journals, citations from colleagues, and
hence a successful academic career. The sophisticated methodology of these economic
history studies has at least two serious drawbacks: 1) its main function is to “legitimize
the law”, i.e. the “discovery” of economic laws and trends that have long been known,
and 2) it substitutes for the lack of knowledge about the specific conditions under which
certain phenomena has emerged and developed, leading to wide-scale neglect of hard
and tedious work with primary sources.
These shortcomings of the so-called “new economic history” are the prime movers
for Francesco Boldizzoni. In his words “Today economic history is going through a
deep identity crisis brought about by the development of a movement founded in the
United States at the end of the 1950s and known as “new economic history” or
“cliometrics” (p. 4). Economic history has become a poor relative of mainstream
economic theory. “The new economic historian had to go to the great supermarket of
economic theory and select a model to apply to the concrete circumstances of the past
as need be. Anyway, it is significant that the chosen theory has always been the one
practiced in mainstream departments” (p. 11). This is the main cause for the need of a
new paradigm in economic history. The courage to turn against the mainstream in

P. D. Penchev (*)
Department of Economic History, University of World and National Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria
e-mail: pencho_penchev@gyuvetch.bg
 Author's personal copy
120 P.D. Penchev

economic history, even at the cost of isolation and harsh criticism from leading
and well-respected names in the field deserves attention and admiration. It serves
as a reminder that in history, economics and science in general there are no
truths of last resort, and that what is now mainstream does not always give the
best explanation of past and present. In his efforts to propose a new paradigm
and to restore the prestige of economic history Boldizzoni actually resorts to the
old arguments of the German historical school. In this sense, the publication of
the Boldizzoni’s book resembles, at least at first glance, a new episode of the old
“Methodenstreit”.
Boldizzoni’s main criticism is of: a) the methodological individualism, b) the
attempt of “transforming economic history into a deductive discipline” (p. 11) and
c) the “belief in the existence of universal laws of human behavior that were
recognizable a priori” (p. 11). All of these components are grouped under the term
neoliberal views of economic history and declared as highly ideological, i.e. seeking
to justify capitalism and modern market economy. Boldizzoni’s claims that “history
should correct theory and not vice versa” (p. 6), that self-interest is not the only or the
most important motive in human behavior (p. 42–53), and that “the working of each
particular economic system needs to be understood on its own” (p. 87). These
critiques are all in fact “borrowed” from the German historical school or from other
authors that are close to that school. So there is nothing particularly new in his zeal
for reforms in economic history
Boldizzoni’s acute attack against mainstream economic history has sparked the
interest and responses of those who are affected (McCloskey 2013, p. 2–6; Bertola
2013, p. 7–10; Bodenhorn 2013, p. 270–471). However, in these responses there is no
answer to the fundamental problems raised by Boldizzoni, which date back to the
time of the famous “battle of the methods” of the 1880s. Adequate reply to the
general criticism and to the methodological charges that Boldizzoni heads to eco-
nomic history and its relationship with economic theory can only be given in the
perspective of the Austrian school of economics.
Boldizzoni’s criticism against modern economic history is in some sense justified,
because in essence it has deviated from the tasks with which it was charged by Carl
Menger in 1883, namely: a) the investigation of primary sources, b) the critical
evaluation of these sources, and c) “the description of the development of those
collective phenomena which we call economy on the basis of the historical material
thus obtained” (Menger 2009, p. 38). The words of an economist at the base of whose
theory stands methodological individualism and who is the bedrock of the modern
neo-liberalism are very important. They demonstrate that Boldizzoni’s principal
accusations against neo-liberalism are generally unjustified because the founder of
the Austrian school determined fairly accurately the tasks of economic history. It is
impossible to find in Menger’s words the ideologization, which Boldizzoni blames on
the neo-liberalism. Obviously the definition of the term neo-liberalism, which
Boldizzoni uses, requires certain clarification and his knowledge of the main tenets
of different economic theories—some deepening.
As for the work with primary sources and the distrust towards relevance of the
complicated mathematical methods—Menger, and other prominent members of the
Austrian school are rather close to the critical attitude of Boldizzoni (p. 89), than to
the so-called neo-liberal economic historians. Ignoring of the quality characteristics in
 Author's personal copy
The poverty of Clio: Resurrecting economic history 121

the study of social phenomena and focusing on their quantitative, measurable aspects
caused the legitimate criticism of Friedrich Hayek. According to him, this trend is due
to the aspiration of economists to emulate the natural sciences, which have been very
successful during the 19th and the early decades of the 20th century (Hayek 1943a, p.
39–40). The transfer of that trend from economic theory to economic history can be
defined as a negative chain reaction that leads to the concentration of research efforts
of scientists on problems that are measureable, but minor. Boldizzoni also ignores the
clear allegation of Ludwig von Mises “the assertion that economics ever maintained
that men are solely motivated by the striving after higher incomes and lower prices is
false” (von Mises 2007, p. 205). The concept of economic man as a rational and self-
sufficient actor has its origin in classical political economy and is useful tool in the
neoclassical economics. However, we should bear in mind that the idea of economic
man is typical of some modern economic theories and of new economic history, but
this concept is not part of economic theory in general or of neoliberal economic
theories in particular.
Boldizzoni comes into direct conflict with the views of the Austrian school by
claiming that historians do not need “prefabricated theory to interpret empirical data”
(p. 139). In response to this statement we should recall the words of Murray Rothbard
when he describes how Ludwig von Mises explained the importance of the theory for
the understanding of so-called objective facts:
One example that Mises liked to use in his class to demonstrate the difference
between two fundamental ways of approaching human behavior was in looking
at Grand Central Station behavior during rush hour. The “objective” or “truly
scientific” behaviorist, he pointed out, would observe the empirical events: e.g.,
people rushing back and forth, aimlessly at certain predictable times of day.
And that is all he would know. But the true student of human action would start
from the fact that all human behavior is purposive, and he would see the
purpose is to get from home to the train to work in the morning, the opposite
at night, etc. (von Mises 2007, p. XVI)
Once he has entered in the mainstream of German historicism Boldizzoni repeats
some of its most popular fallacies. For example, the need of any theoretical knowl-
edge of economic history is rejected, but at the same time, the author uses the
concepts of autarky (p. 76), supply and demand (p. 92), etc., which are essentially
theoretical. It is claimed that in the modern Western world “Child labor is prevented
by a general sensitivity, as well as by the law” (p. 96), while the truth is that the use of
child labor was reduced in the course of the 19th century by the increased produc-
tivity in industry, i.e. by capitalism (DiLorenzo 2004, p. 100–101). Boldizzoni’s
thesis that modern economic theories have arisen to explain modern market economy
and that for that reason they cannot be applied as an analytical framework for
explaining and understanding the course of human history is completely wrong (p.
21). That assertion might be refuted by recalling the fact that the roots of the modern
Austrian economic theory are in such intellectual achievements as those of the
Spanish scholastics, of Richard Cantillon, of the philosophy of Kant, etc. (Rothbard
2006, p. 97–134 & p. 343–362) Some of these achievements have appeared long
before the contemporary market economy, but despite that fact they are applicable to
the analysis of various modern economic phenomena.
 Author's personal copy
122 P.D. Penchev

Boldizzoni’s praise for the historie totale (the approach to history which is
characteristic for the French Annales School), is hardly compatible with Hayek’s
insight about historical facts “Was the man plowing his field just beyond the extreme
wing of Napoleon’s guard part of the battle of Waterloo? Or the chevalier who
dropped his snuff-box on hearing the news of the storming of the Bastille part of
the ‘French Revolution’?” (Hayek 1943b, p. 9–10). The truth is that an economic
historian, as every other social scientist, has to select only those facts that are relevant
to his main problem, and in order to do this he needs adequate theory. The collectivist
approach of the Annales School can be related to the aggregations of the “new
economic history” which Boldizzoni dispraises, and is at odds with Austrian school
which is based on methodological individualism.
The book of Boldizzoni is a clear sign that economic history needs resurrection,
but definitely not resurrection on the basis of historicism. The Austrian school of
economics could offer the appropriate framework (or metatheory in Boldizzoni’s
words) for value-free interpretation of economic history. The insights of that school
are largely neglected by the mainstream economic historians, but the Austrian school
has brilliant examples of economic history works (Rothbard 2008, 2012). The
ongoing discussion of Boldizzoni’s book should induce further insights into the
theory of economic history based on sound economic theory as well as new value-
free studies of the economic history of different parts of the world.

References

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Economic History Research, 9(2013), 7–10.
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ciplinary History, 43(3), 470–471.
DiLorenzo, T. (2004). How capitalism saved America. The untold history of our country, from the pilgrims
o the present. New York: Three rivers Press.
Hayek, F. A. (1943a). Scientism and the study of society. Part II. Economica, New Series, 10(37), 34–63.
Hayek, F. A. (1943b). The facts of the social sciences. Ethics, 54(1), 1–13.
McCloskey, D. (2013). The poverty of Boldizzoni: resurrecting the German historical school. Economic
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