RICHARD T ELY LECTURE had been unable to solve satisfactorily. cording to which purely scientific consid- the existence of downward-sloping cost erations and not political considerations curves for individual firms. The general are presumed to motivate scientific work equilibrium revolution was a result of the but I can claim the protection of the"as delayed appreciation by economists of the if"methodology against any implication leed for a better command of mathemati- of a slur on individual character or a deni cal techniques, the delay being occasioned gration of scientific work. by the long association of the subject with From this point of view, obviously, the philosophy in the English academic tradi- first problem is to identify the elements in tion and its continuing association with the situation at the time of the general law in the continental tradition. And the Theory that accounted for its rapid accep- empirical revolution depended on the de- tance and propagation among professional velopment of the techniques of statistical economists. Such elements are of two inference--most of the historically great types, one relating to the objective social economists were quantitatively oriented, situation in which the new theory was pro- or at least paid lip service to the need for duced, the other relating to the scientific quantitative work, but lacked the requi- characteristics of the new theory itself site tools to carry out such work them As regards the objective social situa selves. For real intellectual revolutions, tion, by far the most helpful circumstance we are left with three major examples: the for the rapid propagation of a new and Ricardian revolution, the reasons for revolutionary theory is the existence of an whose rapid propagation were examined established orthodoxy which is clearly in- some twenty years ago by s. G. Check- consistent with the most salient facts of land [2], the Keynesian revolution, and reality, and yet is sufficiently confident of the monetarist counter -rev olution.These its intellectual power to attempt to explain last two are the subject of my lecture to. those facts, and in its efforts to do, so ex- poses its incompetence in a ludicrous fash My concern, specifically, is with the ion (on this see [8]). Orthodoxy is,of reasons for the speed of propagation of course, always vulnerable to radical chal the monetarist counter-revolution; but I lenge: the essence of an orthodoxy of any cannot approach this subject without ref- kind is to reduce the subtle and sophist- erence to the reasons for the speed of cated thoughts of great men to a set of propagation of the Keynesian revolution, simple principles and straightforward slo since the two are interrelated. Indeed, i gans that more mediocre brains can think find it useful in posing and treating the they understand well enough to live by problem to adopt the "as if"approach of but for that very reason orthodoxy is most positive economics, as expounded by the vulnerable to challenge when its principles chief protagonist of the monetarist and slogans are demonstrably in confiict counter-revolution, Milton Friedman, and with the facts of everyday experience to ask e I wished to start a So it was in the 1930,'s, and particularly counter-revolution against the keynesian in the 1930 s in britain, which had al revolution in monetary theory, how would ready experienced a decade of mass unem i go about it-and specifically, what could ployment associated with industrial I learn about the technique from the revo- senescence and an overvalued exchange lution itself? To pose the question in this rate, mass unemployment which the pre- ray is, of course, to fly in the face of cur- vailing orthodoxy could neither explain rently accepted professional ethics, ac- nor cope with. This, it may be noted was