In our previous chapter we have followed the development of macroeconomic thought during recent years, stressing its analytical successes and visionary failures. Now it is time to reflect on the larger problem of our study – not to trace or criticize in detail the course of economics since the disappearance of the Keynesian classical situation, but to clarify the strategic roles played by both vision and analysis in that unstable and, in our view, essentially retrogressive period. In this task, the contemporary theoretical disarray is as important for its illustrative as for its substantive content. We cannot know what will be the outcome of the present state of affairs, although in our next chapter we shall venture a few suggestions about the requirements for a new theoretical foundation. But first there remains the necessary task of reviewing, summarizing, and generalizing about the roles of vision and analysis in the task of economic theorizing itself.

Let us begin by posing a question that we have already noted, but have not yet pursued to its roots. Why is it that none of the theoretical departures since Keynesianism took hold? To generalize about the larger issues of vision and analysis, we must surely have in mind some plausible answer to a question as seemingly simple as this.

One possible answer suggests itself immediately. It is that no alternative vision of sufficient persuasive power came to the fore. Kuhn argues that no paradigm is ever overthrown except by a viable successor. The argument smacks of circularity, but it has enough empirical appeal to warrant some consideration.