Valuing (and Teaching) the Past

There is a difference between the private and social cost of preserving the past. Although it may be privately rational to forget the past, the social cost is significant: We fail to see that classical political economy is analytically egalitarian. The past is a rich source of surprises and debates, and resources on the Web are uniquely suited to teaching such wide-ranging debates. Our Secret History of the Dismal Science, at www.econlib.org, provides a series of windows on the literary and analytical texts and the artwork that figured in the debates. Students who read Smith juxtaposed with Whitman, who read the Carlyle-Mill exchange, and who see these images, understand the debate in a way that students who read only the Wealth of Nations, Ricardo’s Principles, or John Stuart Mill cannot.