[PEN-L:30108] RE: Re: McCloskey & Post-Autism

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30107] Re: McCloskey & Post-Autism

Doyle writes: >The term "Post Autistim" economics or "Autistic Economics" is an anti-disabled phrase.  <

Though I say below that "autistic economics" is bad economics, I don't think autism is "bad" in any moral sense. The latter is only bad in the sense that it's bad _for them_ if some people are unable to survive in society by their own efforts rather than being treated all the time by parents and/or experts of one sort or another. A hard-core individual with autism cannot survive without a lot of help, continuous help.

Autistic economics is "bad" in another sense, i.e., it's a waste of time and money to have people who simply play mathematical games all the time.

"Autistic economics" is not an "anti-disabled phrase" as much as the application of a general term (autistic) to two separate phenomena, a brand of economics (also called Boubakism) and a kind of neuro-biological disorder.

I wrote:>>The piece by McCloskey reminded me of a basic point: "autistic
economics" is not identical to "bad economics," so that one can embrace
bad economics without autism. (However, I'd say that _all_ autistic
economics is bad.)

>>McCloskey opposes "autistic economics" of Debreu, Roemer, _et al_ by
embracing the empirically-oriented Chicago-style economics of Stigler
_et al_. She's right that the latter isn't autistic, but it's really bad
stuff, ideological, dishonest, etc.

>>Perhaps we should invent the category "sociopathic economics" to refer
to the empirically-oriented version of Chicago economics. After all, the
DSM-IV, the diagnostic bible of psychologists, has more disorders than
simply those on the autistic spectrum. <<

Doyle writes:>However, I'd like expand on the disability theme derived from the phrase, "Autistic Economics" that purports to use to illuminate the economic problem supposedly revealed.  The problem so lableled is

excessive reliance on mathematics and game theory modeling in some
contemporary Economics.  The point of the phrase is to point at the lack
of communications between theory and practical life.<

right.

>Current theory about Autism indicates that some sort of language issue
impedes someone with Autistic symptoms from acquiring the skills to make
speech.  And one major theory icalled "Joint Attention" theory suggests
that an Autistic persons has difficulty in attention structure that
makes sharing attention with another person difficult.  That symptom is
a fundamental defining aspect of Autism.  The symptom then describes a
lack of response to another person in the normal human mode of
interaction that infants show in order to learn language.  Joint
Attention is a theory of language acquisition for human beings (and
incidentally appears to account for why Autistic symptoms occur), that
is that infants first learn to share attention with car givers, and that
is the basis for language.<

My impression is that the basic problem of autism is a sensory-processing issue: those with autism have a hard time filtering out and/or prioritizing sensory input and thus are overwhelmed. They thus try to shut out the sensory world.

Many autistic individuals learn how to speak when young and then _lose_ their ability to do so. Further, Asperger's syndrome (borderline autism, what my son has) usually involves a strong ability to speak at a young age. However, it doesn't involve a strong ability to talk to others as peers, involving two-way communication.

>From an economics point of view setting aside the bigoted anti disabled
label of "Autistic Economics", the theory of Joint Attention might have
some insight about what is going on with an over reliance upon
mathematics and game modeling theories.  The question is do we use such
theories as the label, "Autistic Economics" covers, use these economic
theories in a language-like way?  And language-like refers to sharing
attention structures as the theory of Joint Attention suggests.

Underlying this question are deeper issues of knowledge and body
structure that have to understood by Marxists, and other left oriented
persons.  Without going off to the deeper structures right this moment I
would suggest a decent reading, "Cycles of Contingency", Oyama,
Griffiths, and Gray, editors, MIT Press, 2001. (see chapters 5, & 6 by
R. Lewontin), and "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", S. J. Gould,
Belknap Harvard Press, 2002.

Returning though to my point in an economic sense, it is the language
like sharing of information that the Bigoted Anti Disabled Phrase,
"Autistic Economics" strives to draw attention to.  Can we in some sense
examine the issue economically?  That is can we say that a language like
component of Economic theory is worth investigating and understanding
about how to conceive of the global economy?

One way I've thought about this issue is to compare the relative sizes
of domestic products in telephone and movie areas.  Telephone commerce
produces a great deal more revenue than does movies or television.
While what a movie shows to an audience has language like features,
actors speak to the audience, there is not a "sharing" of attention that
is implied in an exchange.  That is if I pay attention to you as you
speak to me, and vice versa we share attention, but there is no
awareness of my attention from the movie screen like a human listeners
brings to conversation.  An economic theory might suggest a product like
a movie is not meant to be exchanged in a language like "Joint
Attention" structure and that fundamental limit sets boundaries upon
what that information created for a movie can do.  Whereas what can be
done with "Joint Attention" language like exchanges of information
accomplishes wholly different material processes.  In fact makes the
work process possible.

There is a relationship between these issues and what Michael Perelman
writes (in several of his books)  in regard to the current controversies
concerning Intellectual Property (IP).  Business models that reacquire
restricting the language like sharing of information implied in "Joint
Attention" structures have a definite dampening of economic activity
which Perelman refers to as the diminishment of innovation.  However,
that concept is better understood technically from the above references
to evolutionary structure and in particular to the needs of language
like "Joint Attention" structures.  That question restated is ;what is
the relationship between material structure and knowledge and
contingency' that underlies work and information exchange.
thanks,
Doyle Saylor