Invariance: an Argument for Historical Specificity

In this article I engage with the problem of historical specificity. This problem refers to the idea that different socioeconomic systems may require different theories, each tailored to a particular socioeconomic system or systems. I argue that historical specificity should be incorporated by economic theories, something that at the time of writing is certainly not the case. I do so by appealing to the notion of invariance, a notion developed by Woodward (2005) as part of his theory of causation. Adopting the notion of invariance as a requirement for causal generalizations implies that any causal generalization is historically sensitive, which in turn implies that economic theories should be historically sensitive.