The Analysis Applied

I am now going to open another front in this war of the intellectual worlds. It is one I would rather not have fought on, for I can only spare it a few pages, while the other side is as strong here as anywhere. However, I believe that intellectual schools should be judged, and ultimately are judged, on their ability to answer all the important questions in their subject area, without inconsistency, starting from the same set of basic assumptions and propositions. The question here is important enough to be worth answering even if only briefly. Further, by sketching a ‘post-Keynesian’ view in this area too, I shall make the explanation of inflation more complete. But there is no need to stake everything on an argument which stands, after all, apart from the main analysis. The more sceptical reader can compromise. The first half of this section explains how one may expect international competition under free trade to result in certain trends in economic structure and performance. If the reader rejects the explanation, never mind; for the trends themselves there is independent evidence, and if he accepts that, he has no reason to reject the next stage in the argument.