Re: Hyman's Beef

["Bruce R. McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 25 Oct 1997 00:00:23 -0400, Hyman Blumenstock
<hystock@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Bruce R. McFarling wrote:
>> ...
>>         Hyman's complaint about economists who do this is,
>> IMO, a perfectly valid complaint.  However, there is a
>> big difference between "economics who have made" and
>> "economists have made".  In graduate school, I heard this
>> complaint against *economists who make* these excuses.
>> Who made these complaints?  Well, believe it or not,
>> economists did.  I personally know and interact with
>> on a regular basis economists who make this complaint
>> against *economists who make* these excuses, and not all
>> of these economists are pursuing a dramatically radical or
>> heterdox approach to economics (though I reckon that some
>> approaches further from the mainstream make it easier to
>> see the problem, because of the questions that they are more
>> comfortable in asking).  This talk show radio style of
>> reference to all economists as a homogenous group and the
>> SCIENCE of SCARCITY is, quite simply, too broad a brush to
>> use in building a persuasive case.

>Hyman says: I agree that the accusations of knowledgeable wrong
>doing ought not to be addressed to individual economists, who
>are all deliberately rote trained to follow the "holy writ" of
>the text of Economics 101 to the letter.  It ought to be addressed
>to the probably long gone to their "reward" economists who wrote
>up "holy writ," to be slavishly followed, or "there will be the
>devil to pay." Look at the mounds of ridicule and disrepute heaped
>upon such slight deviants from "holy writ," as Marx and LeRouche,
>both trained in standard economics 101.

	It is a cute rhetorical trick to agree with a positition
that is different from the one that I took.  What is false
is this notion that "all" eocnomists are trained to follow
a "holy writ".  That's not how schools of thought maintain
their core models in academia, because there are very strong
incentives to a young academic to find a point on which to
disagree with the currently accepted position in a field
in economics.
	The mainstream position is *not* maintained in the form
of a 'holy writ', rather it is constantly *rewritten* with the
the core models of the mainstream maintained intact.  That is
the primary requirement for a model to be a viable 'core model'
is that it retransmits itself intact in the work of academics
who are constantly rewriting the theory of the school of thought.
	So, first, I do *not* excuse *those economists who make*
these excuses.  An academic scholar is responsible for the
theoretical and empirical positions they take in their research
activity.  Period.
	Second, what I was stating was that I have observed the
criticism *by economists* of *economists who make* these excuses.
So it *is* possible to differ from the mainstream -- even if there
is a price to be paid -- and economists actually do differ from
the mainstream, so it is possible to pursue responsible academic
research in economics even if you dispute the core models of the
dominant schools of thought in the discipline.

	Finally, to ask any academic to *not* criticise the
arguments of anyone, whether Solow or Marx or LaRouche, is to
ask them to uncritically accept the position of that individual.
It's absurd to use criticisms of Marx as evidence that there is
a holy writ.  First, Marx is not a 'slight deviant' from 'Economics
101': Marx's economics was founded in classical economic theory,
and to the extent that many of the features of neoclassical economics
are a response to the threat that Marxian analysis might become the
dominant form of classical economic analysis, the tensions between
'Economics 101' and Marxian analysis are real and deeply rooted.
	Further, what of the example of the Marxian economists who
criticise the work of Marx while building Marx's arguments into the
foundation of their economics.  They are not criticising Marx's
analysis because 'there will be the devil to pay' -- they have
already paid that particular devil.  Just as Post Keynesian economist
are examples of economists who pursue lines of research *for which*
there is 'devil to pay'.  There *is* a price to be paid, but there
are many who have found the means to pay the price.
	Regarding LaRouche, I encountered LaRouche as a sophomore,
and didn't find any reason then to delve any deeper.  AFAIR, it
was rubbish -- tightly argued cases founded on whatever premises
and reading of the evidence were required to reach the desired
conclusion.  That's one of the things that helps sustain dominant
schools of thought: just because someone thinks there are
weaknesses in the core models of a dominant school of thought,
doesn't mean they will approve of *every* dissenting position.
In fact, the same willingness to dissent from the dominant school
of thought means that dissenting schools of thought tend to
include a large proportion of opinionated cusses who are difficult
to organise into a coherent group  of scholars.

Virtually,

Bruce McFarling, Newcastle, NSW
ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx