"It's An Ill Wind..."

 

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends – It gives a lovely light!   ~ Edna St Vincent Millay

Introduction

I can conceive of few academics presumptuous or foolhardy enough to write an ‘intellectual autobiography’ unless invited to do so.ⁱ It is no easy assignment. One seeks to protect a core of privacy; there is a residual subjectivity regarding events and persons that cannot be eliminated; one is obliged to tone things down for practical reasons. Even if one can hope to tell the ‘truth’ it will not be the whole truth – certainly not in thirty-one pages. It must also be said that any linkages that might be suggested between character or experience and professional contribution (and an intellectual autobiography of course seeks out such linkages) can never progress beyond the stage of hypothesis; neither necessary nor sufficient causation is at issue. Yet I myself have learned something from this exercise; perhaps my readers will too.

The present account does not address the so-called New View of Ricardo which has received so much attention over the past twenty years. I have dealt with that matter in a companion piece (Hollander 1995: 1–15). My concern here is with rather more intimate matters. And I shall start near the beginning with the emergence of a theme whose persistence comes as rather a surprise even to me.