The Adam Smith Institute's reaction to yesterday's letter calling for a Plan B for the economy is amusing.
Using a strategy used by many on the right, it sought to avoid the economic argument by playing the people who wrote the letter, claiming many were not economists. Apparently, for example, a retired economist is not really an economist. Nor is a historian allowed to comment on the subject. And heaven forbid someone working for a pressure group be given the title 'economist': that would never do.
The trouble is that this is a particularly foolish argument, and there's ample proof of this. In particular, Adam Smith was not, using this definition promulgated by the institute that abuses his good name, an economist. He was, after all, a professor of moral philosophy and that, quite clearly, using the ASI methodology, would not qualify him to comment on economics.
If this is the best the right can do their intellectual arsenal really is bankrupt.
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We see this time after time after time with the Right.
When their arguments and beliefs turn to dust it’s back to the tried and trusted smear job.
I’d suggest that people who aren’t economists – in other words, people who know something about what the real world is like, rather than slaves to the practice of voodoo with numbers – might be more qualified to comment on what is going on, not less.
Who are these people in the Observer letter? I bet if you showed the list to Average Joe he would struggle to identify one.
And how many of these people have run a business? Or experienced the real world? One? Two?
You raise an interesting question. My inclusion in this list has been criticised on the basis that I am not, apparently, an economist, even though this is the number-one economics blog in the UK. However, what can’t be disputed is that I have run businesses. And there is no doubt that I’ve experienced the real world. But apparently you suggest list does not include such people either.
It seems that there is an absolute poverty of thinking inherent in what you say, and what others have said. All you can do is shoot the messenger. If you look at what the people who wrote the letter have done, you will find that they all have substantial achievements. And they all have experience on which to base their observations. What you really don’t like is the fact that they don’t agree with you and the hegemony of economic thinking which says that unless you believe in the neoliberal approach to economic issues then you can’t be an economist. That hegemony holds true in the U.K.’s universities, and those of many other countries, but it is wrong: using its logic Keynes would not, of course, be allowed into a university now. But that does not mean that he was not an economist, he was one of the greatest that ever lived.
It’s your thinking that is wrong, not those who wrote the letter who are at fault.
As your broader point of playing the man rather than the ball…
It was the signatories themselves who made the issue of their qualifications, not the critics. 2nd sentence starts ‘as economists and academics’. This was presumably included deliberately to give the letter credibility. In doing so, the signatories have made credibility an issue, and therefore should not cry foul if they have invited scrutiny of it.
Having seen details of the individuals on the list, the claim is highly misleading to say the least.
The claim of being an econmist is a ‘nothing’ claim really, and is open to misuse to give credibility amongst those members of the public who are unaware there are no restrictions on a person calling himself or herself an economist. If you have a pulse you can call yourself an ‘economist’ – no law saying you can’t.
I personally can’t give credence to anyone’s claim to be an economist unless they work professionally as one, or unless they have at least some postgraduate qualification in it. An undergrad major or sub-major is just tinkering by interested amateurs. But that’s just my opinion…
Phew, thank goodness that George Osborne, and most Chancellors ever don’t qualify as economists, even if practicing the art
And tell me another profession that requires a post grad university qualification as proof of entry? I’m struggling
It’s also true, for example, that a chartered accountant is a chartered accountant whether or not they’re working as a chartered accountant. Ditto a doctor, for example
To say you’re constructing a straw man is to be overly kind to you
To also say that this is desperate is generous to you
Here’s what Eamonn Butler wrote: “Only 15 of the 52 are actually practising mainstream economists”
This article is a complete straw man.
Another desperate neoliberal economist jumping to the tune laid down by Downing St given they have no real answer to the points we made
“And tell me another profession that requires a post grad university qualification as proof of entry? I’m struggling”
Psychologists.
Many of the sciences (biologist, chemist, geologist etc).
Various other social scientists (eg demographers).
Of course, this isn’t about proof of entry. As I said above, economists have no ‘entry’. It is about commonly understood standing amongst those in the profession (for whatever that’s worth).
The other examples you mention – chartered accountant, medical doctor – have very clear points of entry. You’ve either passed & maintained it or you haven’t with no shades of grey. My 4 year old can hold herself out as an economist, but she can’t call herself a chartered accountant or medical doctor. Or solicitor. Or vet. Or dentist.
I wonder how many other readers of the letter or even its signatories were confused by this difference.
What absolute nonsense
Sure you may need a PhD to be an academic biologist – but you sure as heck don’t in the real world
Ditto the rest – even psychologist need not involve a post grad, although I agree that’s rare – only to make it equivalent to a medic though
So let’s drop that argument
And let’s come back to commonly understood standing: if professorial peers refer to me as an economist, that’s OK by me
So shall we move on?
With the biologists, psychologists etc, my point is that unless you are working in the field, you can’t call yourself one without the postgrad. If you are working in the field, fine.
My point is that without a clear point of entry like chartered accountants or doctors, people can meaninglessly call themselves what they like, to deliberately confuse people who are not aware there really is no accreditation.
That’s what at least some of the signatories to this letter have done, whether deliberately or negligently – made dubious claims to some kind of professionally recognised qualification that simply doesn’t have universal professional recognition that doctors and solicitors and chartered accountants have.
If their points have so much merit, why even make the claim to the profession? Why do they need to mislead? Or do they really think they have been accredited to anything?
On that note of clarification, I am happy to move on and I thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Well, that’s all right then
I do work in the field
Problem solved
As will be the case for the others too
Good article Richard. The neoliberal-right want to keep economics to themselves. They’ll say you “aren’t a mainstream economist”, that you’re “not an economist at all”. They won’t actually look at the evidence because they’re fucking terrified of being found out for the bunch of corrupt, pseudo-scientific chancers they truly are.