Markets, Mandarins, and Mathematicians

I would like tobegin on a personal note, in part to expiatepast sins of omission, partly to allow me to illustrate a major theme of this paper. Though I began the study of economics at Oxford in 1960, to my shame the sole work of Peter Bauer’s that I had read until fairly recently was Indian Economic Policy and Development (1961). Leafing through my copy of Bauer’s book to prepare this paper, I found the margins covered with exclamation marks and “see Little.” The latter reference is, of course, to Ian Little’s 1961 review of Bauer’s book in the EconomicJournal. Little’s opening salvo gives a fair idea of his central thrust (1961, p. 835):