The 'Robbins Circle' of the London School of Economics and Political Science: the Liberalism group' s counterattack of Laissez-faire against Cambridge<The Humanities and Social Sciences>

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The purpose of this paper is to describe the 'Robbins Circle' of the early 1930s at LSE-a miraculous group comprising Lionel Robbins, F. Hayek, N. Kaldor, J. Hicks, A. Lerner, and others-contrasting it with Cambridge economists and elucidating Robbins's perspective. Few reports have explored their theory and policy through Robbins's view. The 'Robbins Circle' supported LSE as the 'international stronghold of the continental economists such as Austrian economics and Lausanne economics as a rival to Cambridge economics.' If we divide their theories conveniently into microeconomics and macroeconomics, then microeconomic theory has been based on Robbins's famous definition of economics and his general equilibrium theory, whereas macroeconomic thought was based on Hayek's monetary over-investment theory. Their policies were fundamentally 'Laissez-faire' in their underlying philosophy, although some economists differed frequently on matters of practical judgment. They sought the 'intellectual independence' of LSE and 'the pursuit of excellence' of the continental economics. Although many economists of the 'Robbins Circle' were dispersed by the influence of the Keynes Revolution, the interrelationship between LSE and Cambridge, and Robbins' participation of the War Cabinet, was considerably influential for them to aspire to the Cambridge school in the point of protecting liberal society.