Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Jared Diamond/New Yorker part 3

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Very interesting, Lou.

Gen. Francis Amassa Walker was of the first president of the American 
economic Association. He could also be critical of conventional economics. 
Here's a snippet from The Invisible Handcuffs:

Francis Amasa Walker offered a similarly negative evaluation of the state 
of economics.  Walker was the best known American economist of the last 
decade of the 19th century and whose wide ranging resume included positions 
as a general during the Civil War, head of the census in 1870 and 1880, 
president of MIT, and president of the American Economic Association for 
the first seven years of that organization's life.  Walker published a 
popular article in 1879, exploring, in the words of Robert Solow, a Nobel 
laureate in economics, "why economists seemed to be in bad odor among real 
people" (Solow 1987, p. 189). 
        Walker lamented that Anglo Saxon economics had turned its back on 
the continental tradition (Walker 1879, p. 438).  He charged that economics 
had become so abstract that it had nothing to offer.  Business people knew 
that this so called science could not assist them in learning how to become 
wealthy.  Moreover, a dogmatic insistence on laissez faire in labor markets 
caused economics "to forfeit all popular respect and sympathy for the 
science itself, especially on the part of the working classes" (Walker 
1879, p. 440).  Walker concluded that "a certain school of economists [sic] 
are undergoing a very serious crisis ....  The interests of humanity are in 
no danger; the friends of the happiness of human beings have no reason to 
feel special anxiety or distress on that account" (Walker 1879, p. 441). 

Also, you might be interested to know that William Petty, the subject of 
the first chapter of a new book on early economics, was one of the pioneers 
of "scientific racism."

 -- Michael 
Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com

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