Summary
The following Centenary Lecture on George L. S. Shackle was given at St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge. The purposes of the present exercise are: 1. To review the literary history of economic uncertainty principally in order to explain Shackle's perception of its meaning and to show how he related it to time, imagination, and choice, and 2. To say a few more things about his very special character. For most economists the concept of uncertainty arose in Richard Cantillon's description first of how a farm manager goes about his business of choosing a crop to be sewn and then how all entrepreneurs face the same problem when they choose to produce a good or service. Cantillon's conclusion is that some people have that entrepreneurial gift, others do not. Shackle's personal modesty was so unusual that he became legendary. He was a word-artist, and his reproach was so gentle that it was hard, at first to grasp it.
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Memorializing George L. S. Shackle
A. Special Introductory Note for The American Economist
When the following Centenary Lecture on George L. S. Shackle was given at St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge I was, so to speak, addressing the choir. My audience not only knew well Shackle's work, but some of them had known him for years.The purposes of the present exercise are: (1) To review the literary history of economic uncertainty principally in order to explain Shackle's perception of its meaning and to show how he related it to time, imagination, and choice, and; (2) To say a few more things about his very special character.1. UncertaintyFor most economists the concept of uncertainty arose in Richard Cantillon's description (Cantillon, 1750) first of how a farm manager (an entrepreneur) goes about his business of choosing a crop to be sewn (where the immediate costs are known but where the price to be received at harvest time can only be guessed) and then how all entrepreneurs face the same problem when they choose to produce a good or service. Cantillon's conclusion is that some people have that entrepreneurial gift, others don't.The next big step was Johann von Thünen's point that certain 'unknowns' are sufficiently regular that given a large enough random sample, outcomes can be predicted according to the laws of ontological probability (Cited in Knight ([1921], p. 26, fn. 4). This phenomenon von Thiinen termed 'risk,' and separated it from those future events, true uncertainties-things one cannot begin reall...See the full content of this document
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