J. Bradford DeLong brad.delong@gmail.com :: 2026-04-28 :: All Souls’ College, Oxford :: The 2026 Sir John Hicks Memorial Lecture in Economic History…

Link to Video:

<https://braddelong.substack.com/p/theories-of-economic-history-zoom>

And let me start going through, making the transcript less incoherent, less cryptic and compressed, and more sensible…

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In 1969 John Hicks decided that it was his task to try to wrestle people away from thinking that the secrets to economic growth were to be found in:

and in:

but rather in a working stage theory that accurately captured how humanity moved from unproductive economies of custom and command and low technology to highly productive economies of market, fixed capital, and science-driven technology.

How is it that Hicks—high priest of the neoclassical synthesis that he was, builder of tools I use every day to my great intellectual benefit—wound up at that point?

Thank you very much. I find I have a lot to say, so let me talk fast.

Sir John Hicks: A Theory of Economic History, 1969. Why did he write it, and what did he have to say in it?

He wrote it looking back on his career. He wrote it becaues he concluded that economics had made a wrong turn with the neoclassical synthesis apparatus that he had played such a major role in building. And he did play a major role in building it. You can probably say with confidence that both Samuelson and Solow did more to create the neoclassical synthesis. You can say that Milton Friedman, George Stigler and company then wrenched it from its role as institutional-ideological support for social-democracy and made it into the ideological foundation of that modern neoliberalism we all know and love so much. But besides those four, John Hicks was next among those who built the edifice.

Let me stress: The neoclassical synthesis in economics is not a bad thing or a wrong thing. it is a powerful edifice It is a useful edifice. I find myself using its analytical tools every single day, to my great intellectual benefit.

Yet, by the end of his career, Hicks had concluded that it was substantially a dead end. Hicks had concluded that it could not help much with the old and central question of economics: how decentralized economies may or may not deliver what Adam Smith promised.

Looking around, wondering whether the tools he had built were adequate for the job, Hicks concluded that they were not. He concluded that it was the economic historians who, in the end, were at least asking the right questions, even if nobody then or even right now—least of all us—is terribly impressed with the answers we have.

So it was back then.

And at much greater length & depth, we have:

• DeLong, J. Bradford. 2026. “Not My John Hicks Lecture: ‘John (Hicks) the Apostate’”. DeLong’s Grasping Reality. April 25. <<https://braddelong.substack.com/p/not-my-john-hicks-lecture-john-hicks>>.

2026-04-28 17:00-18:30 BST (Tue): <https://zoom.us/j/8458651578?omn=95983788025>
Meeting ID: 845 865 1578
Passcode: 764724

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