Lies, damned lies, and economics

["Justin Schwartz" <jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Incidentally, Russell Jacoby visited Chico couple of weeks ago.  In
> decrying the
> absence of public intellectuals, he mentioned that the one area where
> academics
> succeeded in communicating with the broader population was science writing.
>  He
> mentioned Gould in particular.
>
> Why are we so bad that doing that in economics.

Because it's hard to communicate clearly and effectively when you're lying.


> Friedman can write clearly;

But Friedman's popular writing isn't economics, it's standard bourgeois
ideology of a rather blatant sort. I recently reread parts of Cap & Freedom,
same old same old. No attempt to do what Gould does, explain scientific
results to the general reader. You know who's good at this in econ, aside
from Galbraith (meantioned below) is Heilbroner.

so can John Kenneth Galbraith.  Brad de Long and
> Krugman are good communicators.  Are other disciplines more successful than
> economics?

Not philosophy! Of course we haven't got any results, so what do you expect.
We used to have some public intellectuals, though. (Sartre, Russell, Dewey,
James. Habermas--in Germany. Foucault.)

Law has some pretty good popularizers--Posner, Dworkin, for example. Both
literate, smart, good atcommunifcating with the general reader.

jks

> ScottH9999@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >  I find it somewhat ironic that Michael should say that this theory
> > should have in turn influenced him and others in the area of political
> > economy. The question in my mind is why didn't Marxist philosophy have a
> more
> > DIRECT influence here?
> >

Um, because Marxism is a  theory of society? In fact the main social theory
that influenced biology, inspiring both Darwin  and (the socialist) Alfred
Russell Wallace, is Malthus.

Gould was some kind of a pinko, on the board of Rethinking Marxism, obvious
left sympathies. Probably read Marx, hew had to hang out with Lewontin,
after all, who is a Marxit red in tooth & claw. jks

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