ical organ of the life of the race or nation" (Schmoller, 1884, 2). Schmoller (1884, 3 4) held that the "idea that economic life has even been a process mainly dependent on individual action an idea based on the impression that it is concerned merely with methods of satisfying individual needs is mistaken with regard to all stages of human civilization . . . ." By contrast, Menger (1871) said that aggregative, collective ideas could not have adequate foundation, unless they reseted upon individual com ponents.
In a much wider sense, the dispute between Schmoller and Menger, and the historicists and the Austrians was a normative 3VERSUS positive confrontation (Keynes, 1917). It is in this wider context that the discrediting of the historicist movement has produced the most deleterious consequences a century later. The emphasis on positivism in the development and application of modern economic theory, to the virtual exclusion of norma tive values, has created situations wherein activities with an economic component are evaluated within an economic context within the narrow parameters of economic efficiency. This approach has facilitated, and, in some instances, has been used to support activities, which have resulted in the degredation of the natural environment, a squandering of non renewable natural resources, the deterioration of national industrial bases, and the creation of domestic and international social inequities with the potential to produce significant political instability. Unfortunately and ironically, the adherrents of positivistic supremacy in economoic theory are able to view the historic events of 1989 1990 only within the normative context that one form of socialism in economics has been discredited.
Simplified to the extreme, positive philosophy may be said to deal with life as it is, while normative philosophy may be said to deal with life as it should be. In this latter con text, normative philo...