Gerhard Tintner: Review of Economics Is an Exact Science (1945)

Gerhard Tintner’s brief journal book review assesses Jerome Levy’s attempt to present economics as an exact science. It moves from an account of Levy’s mechanical model, through his prescriptions for economic justice, to an emphatic rejection of the book’s contribution.

Levy compares the economy to a machine whose parts include economic classes, land, profits, money, taxes, self-interest, and government. Tintner questions both the terminology and the model’s assumptions:

The terms are not always used in the established economic sense. The relationships contemplated in a sort of tableau économique are all assumed linear.

The criticism concerns the conceptual basis of the claimed exactness: Levy’s categories depart from established usage, while linear relationships are assumed. Tintner does not develop a technical demonstration of the model’s defects.

The review then turns to Levy’s treatment of “just” wages and profits and the efficient functioning of economic institutions. Here the objection shifts from analytical assumptions to normative foundations:

There is not much indication of the general social philosophy on which the "justice" is based.

Tintner tentatively identifies a single-tax orientation, without treating it as a fully articulated philosophy. His final judgment joins these analytical and normative objections:

I cannot see that it establishes economics as an exact science nor that it contributes anything in any way.

The closing reference to publishing during an acute paper shortage sharpens the review’s dismissive tone. Its significance lies in the distinction it draws between asserting economic exactness and supplying adequate concepts, justified relationships, and explicit grounds for policy judgments.