The letter to the Guardian calling for an economic reformation, building on the 33 Theses published last week, has now created a reaction from the economic establishment. I will address the issues that they have raised later.
At this moment I am publishing something I actually wrote last week but did not publish as it was shared with others first. This is an alternative list of 16 Theses. The reason for offering them is to suggest that the 33 offered last week were not the perfect model on which to progress because some were confused; others appeared to duplicate themselves and some issues were just missing. With colleagues at Progressive Pulse we think this issue is important and want to encourage debate on it. So these are my first draft alternatives.
I stress they are drafts. I am open to persuasion and change, as well as addition and deletion. But what I am quite sure about is the need for debate on what economics, or more precisely, political economy, is all about.
1 Purpose
Economics seeks to explain how individuals, the organisations (informal and otherwise) and the states (with their associated instruments of government) of which they are a part make decisions for themselves and as they impact others, whether they be known or unknown to the decision maker and whether intended to have impact now or in the future.
2 Objectivity
There is no such thing as objective economics. Economics always reflects the choices and values and preferences of the decision maker, economist, organisation, society, country or international organisation that promotes it and must be understood within that political and social context.
3 Society
Economics must always reflect the society and its circumstances for which its use is anticipated. Since these societies and circumstances vary wildly there are no such things as standard or optimal economic solutions.
4 Constraints
Economics must reflect the world we live in, the constraints it imposes upon us, the obligations we have to generations to come and the resources currently available to us.
5 Government
A government is the foundation of almost every state and economy in the world. Any study of an economy must reflect this fact; the choices that government has available to it or might realistically make and its key role in establishing the laws and regulations that will underpin all economic transactions in the jurisdiction for which it is responsible. It must additionally consider the actions a government takes through a central bank in creating the money that the government needs to fund its spending and which must circulate in the economy for which it is responsible as well as the tax it does and does not charges to ensure that its fiscal, industrial and social policies are implemented.
6 Diversity
Individuals fulfil different roles and functions at different times in their lives. Economics must reflect that fact and recognise that a useful life is not necessarily one dedicated to work for economic (usually monetary) exchange, whilst also recognising the importance of this role for many.
7 Work
Work for monetary exchange takes many forms and can be contractually organised in many ways. Economics should recognise that no one mechanism is better than another if all suit some and that the differing methods of working, including self-employment and entrepreneurial activity, are a part of the necessary choices that an economy likely to meet varying need will encourage.
8 Discrimination
Economics should not be discriminatory either whether within itself or in the prescriptions it offers or alternatively should be explicit about its choice to be so, making clear those that it intends to favour and why when this discriminatory approach is adopted.
Economics must recognise that people are not homogenous; each having their own preferences and choices to make that cannot always be anticipated. The consequence is that not all bring the same predispositions to economic activity which in turn means that not all will enjoy the same outcomes. That being said, unless explicit and good reason is given the differences in outcome should do no more than reflect the predispositions that each person does naturally possess and even then the human rights of each individual must be respected to ensure all have access to the society in which they live.
10 Predictability
People are not predictable, and none can know with any certainty what might happen to them in their own future, or that of others. The consequence is that the methods that are used for decision making vary widely, including by the same person when considering different issues. Economics must reflect this reality.
11 Need
Without being prescriptive it is likely that most individuals will have a range of needs that are necessary to meet their material, emotional and intellectual needs, with many also recognising that in combination these activities might provide them with a sense of purpose that they alone can define. Economics is not capable of presuming what those goals might, or should, be.
12 Society
People are social beings. The relationships they have, various communities they live in, organisations they work in, and societies of which they are a part are all shaped by them in their own particular ways, as much as they might be by the other participants in them. Those organisations are as a result complex and unpredictable as well as being open to considerable change over time. Economics must recognise this, and that many of the factors that influence those outcomes can rarely if ever be reduced to issues solely relating to economics exchange.
13 Organisations
Because society can grant some organisations either roles or scale that is disproportionate to that of any individual or community their functioning is of particular significance in economics and worthy of special study to ensure that their influence does not inappropriately impact the relationships between all those individuals on behalf of whose well being it should be presumed that an economy is run unless specific assumptions to the contrary is stated, with reasons given.
14 Change
Change is integral to life, and so to economics. Economics must recognise that life is lived in a perpetual state of flux. Because of this continual process of change it is vital that economics is studied within the context of both general history and the history of economic thought because only by doing so can the diversity of possibility be understood.
15 Surplus, deficits, capital and borrowing
In the process of change that is the perpetual normal state of an economy there will be some who accumulate surpluses, and others deficits, of resources. Some of these surpluses will be represented by tangible property. Other elements will be cash holdings or borrowings. Yet more will be non-cash related financial assets and obligations. Economics must both explain the consequences of these surpluses and deficits arising, including their impact on the well-being of those who have responsibility for them, and explain how they might be managed for the good of all as those involved face changing circumstances over time.
16 The wider perspective
Important as economics might be to those engaged in its study it is but one of a range of disciplines that seek to explain the human condition and the relationships between those who make up a society. It must be understood, and taught, in that context and not in isolation.
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Once honed and expanded, the ’33 theses’ of political economy could be the basis for a new edition of ‘Courageous State’. Now that would be a gift from Santa worth having.
My publisher keeps asking…
I don’t think your definition of economics is helpful: “Economics seeks to explain how individuals, the organisations (informal and otherwise) and the states (with their associated instruments of government) of which they are a part make decisions for themselves and as they impact others, whether they be known or unknown to the decision maker and whether intended to have impact now or in the future.”
What you have described is something more overarching than economics, more like politics or governance. For example your definition would include decisions to make gay marriage legal. What has that got to do with economics? Indeed all of human rights legislation has in the first instance nothing to do with economics. Ditto foreign policy.
So here is a more succinct definition of economics: “it is about the production of goods and services”.
But it is not about the production of goods and services unless we understand why we want those goods and services and so your claim ignores everything of significance and answers nothing of importance as a result
See too point 16
There was a reason why 1 and 16 sandwiched this lot
On point 7:
“Work for monetary exchange takes many forms and can be contractually organised in many ways. Economics should recognise that no one mechanism is better than another if all suit some and that the differing methods of working, including self-employment and entrepreneurial activity, are a part of the necessary choices that an economy likely to meet varying need will encourage.”
So how come you believe that two freely consenting adults should not be permitted to exchange labour for money at a rate below some government-mandated minimum?
Note the point re human rights I also make
Yes, I rather think there’s a contradiction . We should have those human rights as diverse people with different needs at different times. You state there should be no objectivity in economics.
I’d like to work in a record store between the ages of 60 and 67 for perhaps £4 an hour and would be very happy listening and cataloguing tunes all day with occasional surges of customers at lunch time and after 5pm.
You want that option to be illegal and my individual set of diverse needs to be proscribed.
Thanks for caring, but no thanks
You may be able to afford to do that
Most cannot
And I worry more about protecting those who will be exploited than I do about what you want to do with your almost free time
I suggest you go out and look at the real world
Mike Pendant says:
December 21 2017 at 2:20 pm
“I’d like to work in a record store between the ages of 60 and 67 for perhaps £4 an hour……”
I sympathise with this point of view …up to a point. I don’t think it should be for government to set minimum wage rates, especially so if they are not going to set maximum remuneration rates which is something they won’t go near.
Part of the the point of UBI is that it reduces the element of compulsion from labour and would allow Mike to work for peanuts because he wouldn’t starve doing it. Not that he’s going to by the sound of it – indeed wonder why he would expect to paid for pursing his hobby at all.
Much of the objection to UBI comes from the Mike’s of this world who would not extend that freedom to the rest of us. The rest of the objections to UBI come from people who would substantially benefit, but for some perverse reason are regularly persuaded to support policies which are against their best interests.
…Happyy Christmas from a good ol’ boy down South. Stars Fall on Alabama and God Bless Dixie.
https://youtu.be/yp0hEukafNs
But that’s complete nonsense
There is no such thing
I didn’t want to listen to the whole thing-I assume Bloom was peddling the multiplier myth?
Yes…
The BoE reference for those who haven’t read it yet – Money creation in the modern economy
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf
This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is created by commercial banks making loans.
Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions – banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits
Part of the difficulty we have though is that we even have bankers who think this is how the model of banking works.
And since all money relies on ‘confidence’ to give it value it only takes the breakdown of confidence to create a collapse.
The money may not be real in the first place, and the ‘shortage’ of money may not be any more real in the second place, but if enough people believe it, it collapses anyway.
If the rules of the money system are irrational then it follows it will be susceptible to irrational disruptions. (?)
Many bankers do think this
Which is quite scary
Hi Richard,
I certainly found these an easier and therefore more powerful read. Brevity is to be encouraged. As Churchill may or may not have said “sorry for the long document, I didn’t have time to write a short one”. I’ve read so many claims about quotes attributed to him that I always like to admit some doubt 🙂
One thing that is important to me that is not included specifically in the above (although touched upon in different places) is the idea of economics being a servant to the aims of the society of which it is part, rather than it being the enslaver of society to a particular ideology as we seem to be at the moment. I suppose that would have to make some reference to the will of the government of the day – which currently it not a pleasant thought!
Is there any room/purpose for an expansion of this point in your list?
Thanks,
Neil
Thanks
Is my suggestion that economiucs must suit the needs of each society and so there is no one standard norm not enough?
Is it’s not I’ll note a required change
Hi Richard,
I noticed when re-reading that you have 2 points (3 and 12) headed “Society”.
The paragraph relevant to my previous comment…
“Economics must always reflect the society and its circumstances for which its use is anticipated. Since these societies and circumstances vary wildly there are no such things as standard or optimal economic solutions.”
I think my issue is probably with the word “reflect” which is a bit passive, but I have completely failed to come up with anything that I think is better!
Well that’s one to correct…..
Thanks
My advice is to take your time on this.
Who is your audience Richard? Who are you writing for?
But if anyone can do this it is likely to be you. I hope that I have not been too negative.
Given the volume of others writing I have on (5 major academic papers and two book chapters right now) it’s going to take time!
But as my neighbour said to me when we were discusssing stopping for Christmas “You won’t stop Richard: you live this stuff. We just won’t see you’re still paddling.” And there is some truth to that. Thankfully I enjoy my work
Actually, it’s the best guarantee of good health I have got.
But the project may be what my publisher calls my ‘magnum opus’
They want me to take three years on it
Give me the advance, I say…..
The problem with point 5, Government is that the concept of Government, as it has developed historically, is now being undermined. I would point to your own thread today on the failings of HMRC over Uber: “The apparent success of many companies in this sector does not come down to their ability to replace a phone call with an app messaging system. It has instead been about cutting out VAT and employer’s national insurance at cost to the state, public services, fair competition and local services.”
I suspect your analysis on HMRC is right, but the purpose and success of such activities is to undermine traditional Government institutions, powers, authority and public support. The same could be applied to the rise and power of tax havens, against which you have battled; the same purpose and success prevails, and again undermines the power and authority of national Governments to act in the interests of the community it serves.
The same argument can be applied to the use of aggressive tax avoidance (which has escalated, probalby exponentially in recent years), even where tax havens are not utilised. The same argument can be applied to accounting and tax conventions that allow international transfer pricing that extract the profits from the country in which they are actually made to another domicile with a lower corporate tax rate. The same consequences for the Government deproved of the taxation follows.
The same could be said about the dispensation given to banks after 2008 to hold all government to ransom; under the general principle almost universally applied, and still applying: “too big to fail”. This has passed enormous power from Government, or the Central Bank to the private sector.
All these devices and techniques are intended to undermine the capacity of Government to tax, and therefore to reduce the power of Government to manage a community; over the unfettered control of profit-making or rent-seeking corporations and individuals (operating individually or collectively on a scale in our modern Globalised age, to match supposed ‘independent’ countries).
The same could also be said – and perhaps most critically of all as a dystopian warning about our future – of the new phenomenon of “blockchain currency” (crypto-currency), of which Bitcoin is merely the exploratory early beginning of a more serious prospect. This concept is intended to take the dismantling of Government power one step further than the erosion of national governments power to tax, and extend it to its control over currency; at which point all Government, as the leading possessor of the collective community’s power and authority, is neutered.
Add all these silent, growing features of 21st century life together and we discover that the concept of the ‘nation state’ is being dismantled before our eyes; and nobody seems motivated to do anything significant about it.
Certainly to think about
And thank you
Crypto-currency cannot undermine government issued currency simply because government could decline to enforce contracts denominated in crypto and also refuse to accept taxes paid similarly.
The blockchain itself is not a bad idea, but is not perfect – see (or at least hear!) this well put together World Service programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvqgb
The Rule of Law is a basis of the state – usually summarised as not only justice but also defence.
My point about undermining government was not intended in the sense of enforcement.
First, my point is that the capacity og government to tax has been reduced by the scale of systematic tax avoidance on an almost ‘biblical’ scale, which is already being almost sysyematically being accomplished.
Second, Government will be undermined not by direct confrontation, but simply by being by-passed by a global currency guaranteed not by any government, but by itself; that at least is, I think the theory; Bitcoin is exploring and testing current reality.
There will be no leverage for government to enforce anything. The vast majority of the people are captured in a place of domicile, but taxes are no longer ‘captured’ automatically be Government (that is long gone), nor is economic activity, nor is accountancy, nor is money/currency.
The most fundamental “undermining” of government is therefore in the slow loss of authority of Government and confidence of its people in their Government, because of these either accomplished or imminent changes to the economic environement happen, largely unnoticed, unrecorded and unchallenged in the apporporiate political context.
Noted
There is almost a festive spirit to my last extravagantly typo-strewn comment. What can I say?
Happy Christmas everyone.
And the ones doing the undermining are the politicians themselves in their Faustian pact with money interests which will only get deeper. It’s like ancient Rome where contenders built up a network of clients. That’s why we need to be rid of professional politicians and parties before things will have a chance of improving. Can’t see it happening though (without some kind of cataclysm).
Given that we amply reimburse our politicians for their expenses in connection with their duties as MPs (which is entirely reasonable as long as it is policed) I can see no justification for paying them a salary in excess of the median wage.
The present payment structure simply ensures that our polity comes from, or immediately joins, the financially insulated class of citizens. Once they have joined the political Westminster club they seem to find it a very amenable place to be and their ambition then seems to be to gain membership of the ‘other place’ which must surely be the ideal model for an elderly day care centre which could beneficially be rolled out to rest of society.
I have to disagree
As I argued here recently there is a starightforward and fair justification for varying rewards in society, which is based on innate productivity. Those who are more able in income earning can earn more because they can produce more. I do not think it possible to deny this. Saying so is quite different from justifying rentierism – which is exploitation. And it does not stop us demanding redistribution even in that case to protect the access of all to society.
But if we want highly productive people to be in parliament – and personally I do – then I see good reason for paying above median wage. Indeed, I can justify three times median wage. But, and I stress the issue, they really do have to demonstrate their worth for it.
‘Those who are more able in income earning can earn more because they can produce more.’
As you know Richard, this is always a bone of contention with me. I think you’ve formulated that phrase in a very strange way which disguises the causality.
It also assumes that that ‘production’ is easily measurable which it often isn’t in many vital jobs -so it’s often down to how our culture values things. There is also the argument that human skills and innate abilities have not been created by the person themselves so it’s a bit like ‘land’-a given natural resource.
At resent the relationship between income and value of social function is all over the place and almost inverted.
There is an argument, perhaps, for increasing the income in proportion to the distastefulness of a job-for example, those that go down a sewer to remove a ‘fatberg.’
But to apply productivity as a measure will, in many cases be subjective except in cases where there is a quantifiable material product.
In terms of a natural productivity and income link, this is contradicted by history where many vital and significant pieces of scientific research have been carried out without much material reward and even loss of wealth. People like solving problems.
On a more philosophic note, our skills and potential as humans are not self created yet we act as if they are (just like we reward landowners as if they had created the land!). To posses skills and ability has an inherent reward and so I often argue the opposite: that pay should be greater in proportion to those lacking such skills and they miss out on the innate reward of possessing them-but i accept this is massively counter-cultural, of course! But still arguable logically. I would certainly contest that the case for significant pay differentials on the basis of ‘productivity’ (whatever we mean by that) is ‘undeniable’ as you put it -it is a question of what sort of society and culture we have and the types of social relationships we want to foster.
Sorry-a bit heavy for Christmas!
Of course investment etc influences this
But the fact is that if you give ten people an indent iCal task and the same tools and time to learn how to do it some will be more productive than others
Yo can argue that the more productive should support the less productive and I allow for this in what I said
But assuming all can access society and the difference is restricted to this productivity differential it is very hard to see what it cannot be justified – or avoided come to that. I think to argue otherwise is to deny a reality that I believe is real
But let’s be clear – that difference, whilst real, will not be anyhting like the ratio of difference we see in the so-called market now. It will in fact mean most pay will cluster around a mean and the standard deviation will not be enormous, with there being outliers, of course, but even then not nearly so extreme as we see at present. It would be a pretty fair world, all things considered comrpared to now.
It won[t happen, but it’s a rational way of explaining what difference might be tolerated and that is why I think it useful
One suggestion I have is that once you have gone through the various core concepts (which is what I would call them) it might then be wise to move onto illustrating how they might work from various standpoints and putting Points 2,3 & 4 to work. Orthodox, heterodox, neo-lib / etc.,
I recall Ha-Joon Chang trying something like this in his Economics Users Guide from 2014 (comparing different schools of economics) so maybe this has already been done.
But there is a case for aligning what we see in society with whatever economic/political perspective is driving it. It might make more people sit up and take more notice.
I don’t know………..but I’ll leave it at that.
And yes – try to get that advance!! You’re worth it.
Thanks
Richard,
Since you are taking a very broad view of economics (as you describe it in theses 1 and 16), I would suggest you broaden point 7 to include non-paid work. Both voluntary work for charitable causes and work in the household including caring for elderly or disabled relatives and friends and bringing up children are essential to the working and cohesion of our society. Often this work supplements paid work, e.g. by social services and the education system.
This would become especially important with a UBI – while we still need to ascertain whether this is the right way to go, it is currently one of the most powerful ideas in the new economics realm. Under a UBI, many people would be able to follow non-paid but socially useful work, such as caring, knowing that their basic financial needs are met.
I do appreciate that paid work forms a significant part of many people’s identity and can be an important source of purpose. But part of this stems from the still prevalent idea that only paid work is ‘real work’. The more we as a society can appreciate socially useful non-paid work, the more we can shift this thinking.
Ultimately, the promise of New Economics is that of a more caring and conscientious society – non-paid work is an important part of that.
I hoped that was implied
But if not I need to be more explicit
I suggest that:
Economics is the study of the management of resources (Period)
Everything beyond that is politics – which has numerous disciplines at its disposal to determine the best (a subjective term) mechanisms for achieving that management and distribution of the benefits obtainable from the resources available.
But since all economics is political I am not seeking to make that division
Yes Richards all economics is political which is why in the nineteenth century it was called Political Economy.
It still is in some places
I am Professor of Practice in International Political Economy, City, University of London
Richard,
I think you would be more right about economics being political if you said that, at least in our modern societies where about 40% of spending is done by the state, economics is about 40% political! Luckily, Labour can aim to get that up to at least 50%.
Some would say though, that economics is all about supply and demand curves and about comparative advantage (for individuals as well as countries), with all the rest being footnotes to them.
These insights were used by stone age people when they traded with the next tribe, or others within the tribe, they are relevant to wild animals deciding on feeding strategies, they are utilised whenever modern people interact with each other as free agents.
After all, it is the existence of a supply and demand curve that enables the state to encourage certain behaviours by subsidizing them, and discourage others by taxing them.
Read Steve Keen on supply and demand curves
They don’t behave as you think
And the result is that they simply are not useful in the way you suggest
Cofe Baker says:
December 22 2017 at 12:37 pm
Richard,
“I think you would be more right about economics being political if you said that, at least in our modern societies where about 40% of spending is done by the state,……”
I don’t think the point is about how much of the ‘cake’ is spent by government. Private sector economic behaviour is as much a part of the mix of political economy.
Property rights is what underpins our entire political economy and has done so since Domesday.
The notion of ‘human rights’ is a very modern addendum to the statute books. The very idea of human rights is more notable in the breach than in the observance. Very much a novel, and unexplored, concept.
“Some would say though, that economics is all about supply and demand curves..”
They might say that, but it’s a very narrow view of what economics is properly about. It governs the balance of predators and prey in a wild environment particularly well. Beyond that it has only very moderate functionality, and is a singularly inappropriate mechanism for organising human behaviour in societies.
Had a quick read through the Prospect piece…had to laugh at this argument: maths allows for abstraction and simplification, followed by maths as a lie detector. You’d almost think Economics was the latest A.I. On a more human level, the accompanying language and metaphors of the piece were full of self-importance. Just read it and marvel at their world-historical role at the centre of existence. This means the critics of economics are also the expert-bashers par excellence. Didn’t we understand that economists are data analysts? (Think lab coats and Big Specs). From their ’empirical revolution’ has come not revolutionaries but handlers of Big Data. Keep out little people, experts at work. No obvious insight about statistics and its problems. Nothing about economic history (they mention CORE. UCL is cited. UCL curriculum has no economic history. None. In first year you study Statistic Methods in Economics, Into to Maths, Applied Economics and Economics (!). Oh hello…there’s even a Skills Lab…must buy that lab coat and those Big Specs…It all seems pretty technique-based to this outside observer…).
If ever there was a subject designed to elicit herd-like thinking, this is it. They even get in a dig at Steve Keen (probably), suggesting forecasting the next recession is akin to astrology. No, they don’t say it as such but putting these two side-by-side implies it.
It never looks good when someone is so critical it looks like they are wishing someone would lose their job, however, if these people can’t and won’t change, I would not lose any sleep or waste any time commiserating if they lose their jobs (they can always teach maths to kids or computing in a community college setting).
My feeling is that these experts and their form of thinking will finds ordinary people inconvenient if they don’t fit their models. Might this be where the justification for such a destructive welfare policy like Universal Credit comes from? Simplication: tick. Behavioural nudgability: tick. Statistical Usefulness: TTTIIIIICCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!
Well, I enjoyed that
Thanks
Thank you for that interesting comment. May I add that economics is an academic discipline that has a notably poor reported record for using statistics satisfactorily. May I suggest reading Ziliak and McCluskey ‘The Cult of Statistical Significance’ as a useful introduction to the problems. Incidentally they point out that Economic History is one field of Economics with a decent record in its use of statistics.
Here is a very peculiar quotation from the Prospect magazine article you and richard cite:
“We analyse this data to understand how people make choices, because that determines how they respond to policies and how they interact. You can ask us about taxes, social mobility, inequality, crime, poverty alleviation, pensions, roads, sanitation, public safety, and, obviously, wine, beer and cider prices.”
Notice that a slithering logical elision has been silently conducted in the placing of these two sentences. What it actually claims is that to understand how people make “choices”, the best method is to study “Gigas and gigas of data” on “roads” or “sanitation”. If I did not wish to finish this comment now, I think I would hastly retire to a darkened room, and lie down, probably for at least a month, to recover fully my will to live after that non-sequitur.
I suspect that another social science may protest that to understand the way that humans make “choices” would be psychology; well, you would, wouldn’t you. If you wish to study the cutting edge ‘hard-science’ on human choices I suspect that a review of the latest literature in Cognitive Neuroscience may be more productive than Economics; and on an a more productive and illuminating, intellectually contemporary line of enquiry; which means embracing inter-disciplinary research in this area; perhaps a philosopher. The one place I would be reluctant to go is Economics (since we know how going to economics turns out when you are looking of predictions …….); for precisely the reason that articles of this kind found in Prospect are still being written; how very 20th century they remain (!)
I stress, I use maths. I sometimes write it. And I firmly believe it can be a useful tool.
But economics reliance on data to explain decision making has a number of problematic elements to it. First, unless it is used to reveal the mean there are issues, because there is almost invariably reversion to the mean. That fact alone suggests that maximisation is nonsense.
Second, people by and large do not use data to make decisions unless this issue is really quite simply. Price comparison web sites offer an illusion in this respect. They compare relatively simple to explain products that literally make price the variable. But few products fit this description and almost nothing of real importance does. As a result we resort to heuristics instead. If economics spent a lot more time undertsanding what shapes those heuristics it would be a lot more useful.
I should emphasis that my criticism was not of mathematics (or statistics). I know some of the most serious critics of the misuse of statistics in (typically, but by no means exclusively) the social sciences, are mathematicians and statisticians; who feel their disciplines are often impugned for the failings of other disciplines. This often comes down to the real depth of knowledge (and teaching) of mathematics and statistics in other disciplines.
Agreed
And endorsed
“2 Objectivity
There is no such thing as objective economics.”
If that is so then ‘Economics’ ceases to be even the ‘dismal science’ and becomes no science at all.
It really IS just a modern manifestation of a ( non-theistic ?) religious belief system.
I even query the ‘non theistic’ qualification because there are still those who maintain that Gold is God. (A notion which Moses went to considerable lengths to dispel when he made the wandering tribes consume their golden calf – to demonstrate it was not sustenance)
Currently our false god of choice is the ‘The Market’ (aka The Free Market).
Religions work primarily for the priesthood and those who would dominate society.
Science is something else entirely.
Economists need to decide whether they are priests or scientists.
Something to think about while we are digesting our Turkeys, perhaps.
‘Religions work primarily for the priesthood and those who would dominate society.
Science is something else entirely.’
I’m not so sure -science isn’t really ‘pure’ untainted knowledge and has political overtones quite frequently. Take ‘evolutionary biology’: it has probably propped up a lot of neo-liberal nonsense in its time ( its prevalence even coincides with the neo-liberal era-not an accident, I think).
Dawkins is more akin to a Priest than a scientist, I’d argue.
Nietzsche wrote, in the late 19th Century, that scientists were becoming the ‘new priesthood.’ Scientific knowledge can’t be divorced from its realisation -take the research into neutrinos, this has involved massive excavations of mountain ranges in order to set up the right laboratory conditions for experiments, so you need to create a great deal of environmental destruction for the sake of that knowledge.
In the case of Economics, Phillip Mirowski has written about the way Economics tried to imitate physics in the late 19th Century (this is the period when the graphs and equations started appearing).
This is interesting. Parallel with the rise of neo-liberalism in economics the most influential philosopher of science in the second half of the 20th century was Karl Popper (a close friend of Hayek). Popper’s science was urbane, smooth, sophisticated, facile, and compellingly simple. I think it was quite wrong, and beneath the elegance; glib. It was seductive but beneath the surface surprisingly naive. When I was a student I was impressed, sceptical but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I later found out.
I make no claims to having devised the answer, but in response to lazy 20th century presumptions (built out of 19th century ideas), I advise that the most important philosopher of science of the 20th century (in my opinion), was not Popper (or even Kuhn), but the late, brilliant Paul K Feyerabend (pronounced ‘Fire-abin’, a pronunciation that has perhaps held his reputation back in Anglo-American circles!). His best known and perhaps a little over-provocative work (in later editions), is appropriately titled: ‘Against Method’.
So I guess that is my recommended Chritstmas reading.
Have you find a good, but shortish, summary?
Thanks
Richard
Thanks John-I’ll look out for that (probably via Jeff Bezos unfortunately!).
Feierabend also spelled Feyerabend is, of course a German name it literally means ‘the end of the working day'( Feier = celebrate/Abend= evening).
Just found a copy for £7.50 -Christmas present to self!
Thanks again.
Feyerabend became more and more radical and excessive as he became older; perhaps railing against ‘the dying of the light’; I think I should make that clear (it is often easy to conclude that he has gone ‘too far’; but we should remember he was trying to shift, in a fundamental way, the way we think). I prefer the younger, more austere Feyerabend. In any case, here is a brief summary I have extracted hastily from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website, from one small part of the section on Feyerabend:
“Against Method explicitly drew the “epistemological anarchist” conclusion that there are no useful and exceptionless methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge. The history of science is so complex that if we insist on a general methodology which will not inhibit progress the only “rule” it will contain will be the useless suggestion: “anything goes”. In particular, logical empiricist methodologies and Popper’s Critical Rationalism would inhibit scientific progress by enforcing restrictive conditions on new theories. The more sophisticated “methodology of scientific research programmes” developed by Lakatos either contains ungrounded value-judgements about what constitutes good science, or is reasonable only because it is epistemological anarchism in disguise. The phenomenon of incommensurability renders the standards which these “rationalists” use for comparing theories inapplicable. The book thus (understandably) had Feyerabend branded an “irrationalist”. At a time when Kuhn was downplaying the “irrationalist” implications of his own book, Feyerabend was perceived to be casting himself in the role others already saw as his for the taking. (He did not, however, commit himself to political anarchism. His political philosophy was a mixture of liberalism and social democracy).”
I hope that helps, as a very, very slight, summary introduction. My suggestion is to read Feyerabend very carefully and closley specifically on scientific method, and take some time to digest and reflect; it is much easier now to see through the fog, than it was in the 20th century – only because of Feyerabend. He wishes to shake complacency and over-confidence; and first reading him reminded me a little of the remark made by Bette Davis in the film ‘All About Eve’ (1950): making a grand entrance to a big party in her honour, she offers the aside, “Fasten your seatbelt, it is going to be a bumpy night”.
🙂
And noted
I need two cracks at this! Here is a favourite Feyerabend throw-away remarks, that means a great deal:
“Science’s only method is ‘opportunism’. I like that. This was in an interview. Later in the interview the interviewer concluded:
“Beneath Feyerabend’s rhetorical antics lurked a deadly serious theme: the human compulsion to find absolute truths, however noble it may be, often culminates in tyranny. Feyerabend attacked science not because he actually believed it was no more valid than astrology or religion. Quite the contrary. He attacked science because he recognized–and was horrified by–science’s vast superiority to other modes of knowledge. His objections to science were moral and political rather than epistemological. He feared that science, precisely because of its enormous power, could become a totalitarian force that crushes all its rivals.”
Well maybe; but it catches something of the elusive quality to Feyerabend’s thought that is easily overlooked for the obvious, quick fix that everybody wants from everything. The interview was in the ‘Scientific American’ by John Horgan (2016). Feyerabend died in 1994. The interview provides a brief summary, and some sources, and further reading.
There is no substitute for his work. He did not tend to write vast tomes.
Thanks
The logic appeals
Correction! The sources and extensive further reading on Feyerabend are in the Stanford website. Writing in too much haste!
I think we’ve reached that totalitarianism in some areas-particularly biology and, as you say, we can’t separate the scientific view of ‘man'(sic) from the homo economicus.
The danger can be illustrated by Dawkin’s producing a recent children’s book called ‘The Magic of Reality’ which posits a purely one dimensional view of truth as a matter of observation of data which is a product of the Enlightenment (or one aspect of it) – this is the real road to sefdom, when reality (which is a complex social phenomenon) is reduced to information processing.