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I see, so the statement "He notes that marginalist theory presumes to investigate the individual mind, but much of the actual action in economics comes at the level of aggregates" is not to say that he was right, but an indication of the confused thinking at the time?
not sure I follow... why don't both statements apply?
He's definitely saying that as "an indication of the confused thinking at the time" but I also think the first portion holds.
Sketched out example is that classical economists would say/claim/reason over things like this: England produces 1,000 bushels of wheat, and there's 10 ounces of gold circulating. 300 bushels have to be planted back as seeds for next year, so the price of wheat is 10/(1000-300) = 1/60th ounce of gold.
Like, there was no incremental/marginal analysis -- just complete, aggregate classes of analysis.
I'm probably just overthinking it. The phrase "Much of the actual action in economics comes at the level of the aggregates" feels wrong to me. The action happens at the individual level, but it's fair to say that we care more about the aggregates, or we're better able to measure the aggregates.
I might just be getting too nuanced about the semantics.
...or the way people thought about these things before. It's super obvious to you and me that economic action happens marginally and at the individual level. But I'm not so sure the classical economists had that same impression
Cowen is expressing confusion at this, too -- and that's exactly the point. It wasn't obvious or trivial at the time. Economists, pre-1870s, didn't think about individual trades or marginal decisions; they thought of aggregate classes of goods or factors of production or int "exchange" broadly speaking.
same point: they didn't use to think about economic phenomena this way
update: you can see it in Chapter 3, too. Cowen quotes a lot of contemporary reactions/reviews to Jevons... nobody thinks he's done anything revolution or impressive.