Re: Why Heterodox are subject to be losers.

["Goncalo Fonseca" <hetwebsite@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gary Mongiovi wrote:

> One can easily imaging Paul Sweezy and
> Jacob Viner having lunch together, and both leaving the table thinking
they'd
> got something useful from whatever exchange had taken place, even while
> remaining convinced the other guy was dead wrong.
>

But Viner and Sweezy were rare specimens!  I am just as certain that we can
pair up a few mainstreamers and heterodoxers for lunch today with no less
civility.  It is the mediocre dimwits that are the problem.  But the dimwits
have ALWAYS been a problem and will always be a problem.


> Things are different now of course. The mainstream is a largely intolerant
> club that has no interest in non-mainstream work. The leading generalist
> journals are inbred and unwelcoming to non-noclassical submissions. The
> history of how this happened remains to be written (I think: does anybody
know
> of one?), but I suspect it was partly a reaction to some good hits that
> non-mainstreamers landed during the 1960s & '70s.

I think it is misreading of history to believe that mainstream academic
economics ever happily embraced pluralism in the past.  It was as intolerant
in the 19th and 20th Centuries as it is today.  Once ANY group (Classical,
Historicist, Neoclassical, Institutionalist or otherwise) took hold of an
institution -- whether an academic department, professional association,
journal, or some meta-instutution (like the French Academy) -- purges and
silencing of dissent almost invariably followed.

If the past SEEMED more pluralistic it is because economics departments were
small and novel, groping for a place in the sun and thus susceptible to
"infiltration" by what passed for heterodoxy back then.  A single hire (e.g.
Ely at Wisconsin, Sumner at Yale, Mitchell at Columbia, Davenport at
Cornell, Schumpeter at Harvard,  Knight at Chicago, Robbins at LSE,  etc.)
could completely transform the nature of a department.  These little giants
were all quite effective at rooting out dissent WITHIN their departments and
 remake it in their own image.  Different tyrants with different theories in
different universities may add up to pluralism on the whole, but it does not
mean that "pluralism" or "tolerance" was internally the norm.

[In some rare cases, (e.g. Walker's MIT, Schumpeter's Harvard), the "leader"
himself was cosmopolitan enough to spread his protective wing over the
heterodoxically-inclined (in Harvard's case, Goodwin, Galbraith, the Sweezy
brothers, etc., but a determined administration eventually purged them).
Only in a few rare cases do we have any resemblance of an enlightened and
conscious "pluralism" in a single department (e.g. early Columbia, under the
joint tutelage of Seligman, Clark and Moore).]

Furthermore, if you think what is happening at Notre Dame is "new", look
back into the 19th Century.  The Morrill Act, with its provision for
"scientific schools", served as an excuse for many universities (e.g. Yale)
to ghettoize non-classical economics.  How many "economic history" and
"statistics" departments were created in the early 20th Century to shove
historicists and empiricists out of economics?  In a few cases, the ghetto
served as a Trojan horse to "capture" the department but this was rare (e.g.
Hotelling's SRG at Columbia; Koompans's Cowles Commission tried -- but
failed -- to perform the same trick at Chicago). .

The only other alternative to the heterodox was to sit in the shadows and
wait until some brand new institution opened up, and then hurry to feather
it as their own nest.  Homeless Neoclassicals were darn lucky with the
creation of the University of Chicago (and the JPE), the Institutionalists
with the foundation of Wisconsin and other midwestern universities, the
French Neoclassicals with the neglect of the Grand Ecoles, the French
historicists with the creation of economics departments in the law faculties
(and Gide's uncharacteristically open Revue d'Economie Politique).

And if we are subjected to an unprecedented and mindless amount of
"ridicule" today by the mainstream, just grab an old journal and see how
orthodox French Liberals treated Cournot and Walras (pere et fils), or how
the Institutionalists handled the Neoclassicals in the AER (and vice-versa
in the JPE) during the 1920s, or the cross-frontier harangues of the
partisans of Menger and Schmoller, or the public mudfest between Newcomb and
Ely, etc. Nothing has changed much since the ugly old days.

If this summary seems to indicate anything is that there is no room for
heterodoxy today unless one or all of the following are fulfilled:

(1) A few grand-old-men of the mainstream decide to listen to us seriously,
even if critically -- as Walker did in the 1880s, as Samuelson and Solow did
in the 1970s -- and thus "bless us" with their interest (if not quite
approval).

(2)  If we fall on the luck of having a few interested wealthy patrons (e.g.
Henry W. Farnam, Alfred Cowles) bankroll research institutions and journals
for us that give us prestige and harbor (government could do the same, but,
in the current political mood, that is less likely).

(3) Somebody creates a brand new university with such an enlightened (or
misinformed) president and board of trustees that they appoint a "strong"
heterodox personality ready to create a kick-ass economics department, with
precise research objectives and no tolerance of dissent (Paul, are you
available?).  A change-of-heart in a small conventional university would do
as well.

(4) We look overseas, to Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia, etc., less
concerned with the American academic ratings-race and more interested in
making something out of the universities they already have.

Once any of the options 1-4 are fulfilled, proceed with Machieavellan
calculation, win the great "American science" race, i.e. create such a
great, self-referencing  research program that makes the mainstream seem
"unscientific" by conventional standards.  A few guidelines:  Firstly, no
tolerance of dissent; pluralism seems "unscientific" and "scientism" is the
measuring rod here.  Back this position up with absolutely NO reference to
the mainstream whatsoever -- unless it is to heap ridicule on them (to take
someone seriously is to acknowledge their merit and thus lose your advantage
in the scientism race).  You must conduct your debates and advances only
with your own, rip apart anybody who disagrees with you on fundamentals and
bring the young to heel. Write or commission alternative histories of the
discipline to make yourself seem the keystone to advance.  An important
note: Do NOT connect your research overtly with government policy -- policy
means politics and politics makes your research seem "unscientific".  At
best, make it seem as if you are merely providing "technical" analysis and
support for existing (i.e. already-accepted) government policies.  Apply for
government research money, as much as you can get, from whatever branch is
willing to provide it.

Some of the strategies I do NOT recommend are the following:

(1) Wheedle your way quietly into a conventional department as a "token"
heterodox in the hope that you can elbow for some more breathing space for
you and your ilk.

(2) Hope some Schumpeter-like cosmopolitan figure with enough administrative
clout strides on to the stage to head your department or university.

(3) Wait for a new "Great Depression" or some other calamitous disaster to
send the mainstream into a tongue-tied tizzy and then just wait by the phone
for the call-to-duty.

(4) Take over the department as laid out earlier, but then create a "big
umbrella" department (which includes Neoclassicals) and hope nobody notices
you are slipping down the newspaper rankings.

I write all this with tongue-in-cheek.  The question of strategy depends on
what your objective is.

If the object is to transform heterodox into orthodox, I think some of the
more Machiavellan prescriptions I have suggested are necessary.  I think
people like Paul, who take their economics seriously and have endured more
than most, have this in mind.   Paul's strategy, in particular his embrace
of intolerance and his call for a unified, non-neoclassical conceptual
framework, may be repugnant to our instincts, but I suspect (reluctantly)
that he is right.

If the objective is to simply get some more "breathing space" in
conventional departments or simply to avoid being elbowed out of existence,
then I have no idea how to go about this.  Past experience is simply not on
our side here. Yet the dream is noble and I would be the last to advocate a
retreat from pluralism. In fact, I would be the first to proclaim that it is
best to just grin and bear it rather than begin acting beastly towards each
other.  Indeed, if our objective is the advancement of the science, then
that, in my opinion, is always best served by pluralism. But much
frustration must be endured in the interim and we will probably have to
resign ourselves to continue pursuing our research in the shadows,
continually battling dumb administrations and dim-witted, prejudiced
mainstream middleweights.  But remember -- this is an unwinnable war.  Dumb
administrators and dim-witted mainstreamers have existed since the dawn of
academia and there is no sign of them ever becoming an endangered species.

Like everyone here, I hope the current situation will not last, but I am not
certain that it cannot.  A concerted, unified, take-no-prisoners assault, as
Paul suggests, may not work, but it has a much better chance of succeeding.
Whether it is worth discarding our scientific integrity and humanity for it
is an altogether different question.

I will try to end on a final optimistic note of historical parallel.  The
exasperation and frustration I have read on this list is, surprisingly, not
much different from that expressed by early mathematical economists like
Irving Fisher in the 1910s and 1920s.  Yet, after giving up all hope of ever
overcoming ridicule and finding any breathing space in academia, they
suddenly "took over" in little over a decade. Luck was on their side.  The
coincidence of a few crucial appointments (Schumpeter, Hotelling, Robbins,
etc.), the creation of a couple of well-funded research institutions
(Cowles, SRG), the forging of an international network of the like-minded
(Econometric Society) and, above everything, the superhuman energy and
courage of a few young blades (Frisch, Samuelson, Hicks, Lerner, etc.)
turned the whole thing around.  There is no reason to think that the same
cannot happen tomorrow.  It just takes a little work.


Goncalo