Re: The conflict at Notre Dame

[Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

See my comments below, following my original responses to Paul, and Paul's
to me:

-----Original Message-----
From: pdavidso [mailto:pdavidso@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 5:39 PM
To: Clifford Poirot
Cc: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: The conflict at Notre Dame


>===== Original Message From Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>Paul,
>
>I find your vision to be entirely unattractive. I can't imagine a worse
>outcome than having two competing, rigidly defined orthodoxies competing
>against each other, with members of both camps conspiring to do the other
in
>(except for one orthodoxy ruthlessly punising all others). This outcome
>would also require and indeed lead to, norming and enforcement within the
>camps.

You can not beat a rigid orthodoxy who despise non-pure bred Aryans
(heterodox
economists) with a "lets all share the tent guys and gals" philosophy. As
the
Allies found  out when dealing with Hitler it takes an "unconditional
surrender" approach and stronger [ in this case, stronger logical] forces to

win what -- whether you like it or not -- the other side has declared as a
war
of annihilation.

Nor can you build a coalition to disarm Saddam with brash arrogance,
ignoring your allies, while calling the French and Germans wimps and
appeasers and ignoring the progress that the UN inspection process is making
towards real disarmament.
>
>I personally witnessed this at Utah, where orthodox Marxists organized
>themsevles behind a single general theory to punish dissenting Marxists and
>Institutionalists. Sure, the Marxists retained control of the department
and
>thus managed to stave off the old guard neo-classicals.

I know nothing of the Utah situation so can not comment

I'm not requesting comment-simply adding my own view and experience to the
general fray. But my point is do you defeat rigid orthodoxy by merely
adopting a counter-vailing rigid orthodoxy? I suppose it depends on what the
goal is. My goal is pluralism, openness and academic freedom. The mainstream
may say it is in favor of these goals,and may even believe it is, but in
practice it is not. We can contrast the situation in economics with the
situation in other discipines such as sociology, anthropology, international
relations. All these fields have dominant paradigms yet those does not
prevent alternative theories from circulating.

 So a victory of
>sorts was achieved and a heterodox department was maintained. I think this
>is a hollow victory.
>
>We cannot have a General Theory of the sort you propose, because you cannot
>have real axioms in the social sciences and thus derive the theory
>inexorably within a closed system of logic.


You are misusing the words GENERAL theory.  A General Theory has the FEWEST
number of non restrictive axioms [  See Keynes's preface to the German
Language  edition of THE GENERAL THEORY  -- not the translation inthe CWK
for
as Bert Schoefeld indicated a sentence was left out of the English
translation
of the  German language preface reprinted in CWK.

But nonetheless you are trying to start with the fewest restrictive axioms
and work inexorably towards general conclusions. If you cannot have axioms
in the true sense in the social sciences, then you cannot have a General
Theory of the sort you propose.



 Interestingly, E.K. Hunt makes
>the same argument that you do, but his axiom is the labor theory of value
>thus leading to a "General Theory" that Hunt believes is superior to PK and
>Institutionalism, and clearly, N.C.

Claims? Superior is not the same as general!?

E.K. would, and indeed has argued that his theory is the more general. He
deals with this issue (though he does not use the word General) in his
history of thought text and in an article he wrote quite some time ago
critiquing Joan Robinson (sorry, the exact reference slips my mind).

 How would I ever choose between your
>"self-evident axioms" E.K's self evident axioms?

Simply by first reducing his axiomatic based to the lowest number of non
restrictive axioms and still be able to explain some important observable
phenomena. For example I would sure  like to see Hunt explain the concept of

"liquidity" via a Marxian labor theory of value---!  He would fail and his
only defense would have to be that he claimed liquidity  is not an important

or observable concept in the real world.

Liquidity can be dealt within the context of the LTV. I personally am not an
advocate of the LTV nor am I a Marxist. I believe it can be done. Perhaps
there are some on this list who might want to give it a try. As for my
purposes, let me simply say that you and E.K.-or you and many other
Marxists, share a common method of starting with what you believe to be the
single most important least restrictive axiom which all theories must
explain. Let's generalize a bit further:

Austrian Axiom: Capital is Time
Marxist Axiom:  Capital is dead labor time
Paul Davidson's Axiom: Liquidity is the defining feature of an
entrepeneurial economy due to uncertainty.

Now, let us look at these statements. They play for variuos theorists the
same role that a statement such as "The sum of the angles of a triangle is
180 degrees". From these axioms we can proceed to prove many propositions
about triangles. That is acceptable. Plato took Euclidean geometry seriously
and argued that in philosophy we could discover universal truths and that
the philosophic sould could eventually ascend to God. In Plato's view, the
realm of solids (eidos) proceeded from the "One". So that we can have
"axioms" in philosophy and thus derive real universals in philosophy much
like we can in geometry. thus in modern philosophical terms, we can know
"the thing in itself" rather than the specific category.

Aristotle viewed it differently, and I choose Aristotle over Plato.
Aristotle argued we could know universals, but that we came to our knowledge
by the combination of reason and observation. There was no extra-earthly
eidos for Aristotle. Thus Aristotelian categories are formed by reducing
commonalities to their essence. Thus in economics we can derive the concept
of "capitalism", or "market economy" or "entrepeneurial economy" by seeing
what makes these concepts differ from other forms of social and economic
organization. That is, we can discover the "essence" of capitalism, but we
cannot discover it "a priori". Our understanding of it does not flow from
the one, or from abstract categories contained in our heads, transmitted as
it were, at birth, embedded in Chomskyan deep grammatical structures
(whether deep grammatical structures exist is another issue). Further, as
Aristotle recognized, there is a difference between "potential" and
"actuality" and between "being" and "becoming". Things can evolve and
change.

I deny that from an Aristotelian perspective we can have a "General Theory"
derived from the leas restrictive number of axioms of the sort you propose.
I believe, in agreement with Sen and Nussbaum, that we can derive
universally valid **Normative** propositions about how humans should be
treated. But there is a difference.

Finally, your definition of axiom is just plain wrong and frankly, bass
ackwards. An axiom is **NOT** a universal truth that we derive nor is it a
generalizable proposition. An axiom is something that is "true" by
definition. You cannot have true axioms in the social sciences. You can use
things "as if" they were axioms. But don't kid yourself-an economy is not a
right triangle!

The best you can have is
>some a priori assumptions that serve as axioms-but we should not kid
>ourselves unless we really believe the economy is a thing of which we can
>have knowledge "of the thing itself".

What would you prefer, "knowledge" of a Wonderland Alice? If you go through
the looking glass -- you get everything backwards -- and half-axxxx in my
view!

We see through a glass darkly Paul, because in relation to the thing in
itself, we are children. Our task is try to see as adults, while recognizing
that our vision is incomplete. Knowing we see through the glass darkly is
the start of gaining knowledge. There are many factors that enter into the
acquisition and formation of knowledge-starting with "world view", or "hard
core" or whatever term we can to use. The best economists can do is tell
stories that more or less make sense and can be tested against the real
world to see if the story is more or less correct. On this point, I agree
fully with McCloskey. Where I disagree with McClosky is the notion that the
stories economists or historians (or anyone else tells) are the same type of
stories as "fictional" stories. We don't get to make it up and we cannot
afford arbitrariness. Our stories need to be checked. I agree with the
post-modernists that we cannot have one single, complete, universal story
that encompasses all experiences and facets. I disagree that that means all
stories are equally valid, or that the choice of story is an existential
leap into political ideology.

>
>My argument about Stiglitz is Lakatosian. At the level of the hard core, I
>disagree with Stiglitz. At the level of the protective belt, I find
Stiglitz
>dealing with real world problems.

Sorry but this is a terrible example. If the hard core assumptions are
unacceptable, and yet you like the way he deals with "real world problems"
then you must like people who are  logically inconsistent and then invent
all
sorts of ad hoc constraints to make the theory come out to be what we all
knew
was the absolute truth in any one special and unique event!! The policy
solution therefore is to remove the thing causing the ad hoc constraint--
asnd
in Stiglitz case if he was logically consistent it ould be to remove all
institutional constraints on prices and institute a perfectly flexible
relative price world! Or else wait for the long run to solve the problem.

No-I like people who tell me good and true stories.


Thus I see the challenge to heterodox
>economists like myself is how to take research from the protective belt
>driven by another "hard core" and find a way to make it consistent with my
>own "hard core".


Sounds like hard core porn to me --).  Sorry Cliff, I couldn't resist the
possibility of a double entendre in your comment.

 I disagree that "hard cores" must be "hard" or "rigid". We
>all have them. They may be immutable to direct falsification.

Remember an AXIOM is something we accept as a "universal truth" --- and
therefore if there are observations that conflict with one of the axioms we
are using in our analysis, then one must eliminate that restrictive axiom
and
strive for a more general (fewer axiom based) theory.

THis is not an axiom as philosophers use the term Paul. Where did you get
this definition of "axiom"? Secondly, how did you arrive at this
epistemological principle? You assert it as gospel-for you it is almost
axiomatic. I think it needs to be justified as an epistemological principle.

\
\ But we should
>at least be willing to re-examine them in the light of new evidence and
>experience-or else, we are not practicing social science, we are practicing
>an odd sort of religion that equates economic axioms with such matters as
>transforming wafers into flesh.


No there must be at least one nonrestrictive axiom in any analysis!!


Your argument-- to me at least-- smells of bad logic and bad theory-- and it

it is the kind of thing that I have seen making the heterodox their own
worse
enemies for decades -- and allowing the mainstream to divide and conquer.

The mainstream does not win because of logical consistency. The mainstream
wins because of power and because they remain insulated from real world
experience. Mainstream economics is a closed, self-reinforcing loop. You are
deluding yourself if you really think that on the day that all heterodox
economists agree on one least restrictive axiom, the mainstream will crumble
before our onslaught. This reminds me of the old joke about how many
Marxists it takes to go fishing-100-one to hold the pole, 99 to find the
correct line!

Sorry Cliff I can not be more appreciative of your approach -- but I have
seen
it resulting in the death of real analysis of entrepreneurial money using
systems.  No wonder economics is becoming an even more dismal science and
the
promise that Keynes held out for his generation's grandchildren has
disappeared -- as has his general theory in all mainstream discussions of
the
real world.

I am not asking for appreciation. This exchange serves to sharpen my
thinking and clarify my views. Economics is becoming a dismal science
because for a number of reasons, neo-liberalism as a political ideology
triumphed in the late 1970's, when for a number of related causes, mixed
market economics foundered. You would have me believe that Friedman
triumphed and that Thatcher adopted Friedman's views over interest rate
targeting, because Friedman was more logically consistent than Samuelson.


Paul

Paul Davidson
Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
University of Tennessee
SMC 503
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
phone # (561)369-1951; fax #(561)369-1951;
email pdavidson@xxxxxxx
http://econ.bus.utk.edu/davidsonextra/Davidson.html