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List-members and Ross will, I hope, indulge me in a slightly
complaining tone. A simple request for information about what
critical economists have said about economics (from Neil via Mary)
has led to unsubstantiated accusations that any such economist must
be one or all of un-rigorous (Chas.), whingers, past it, concerned
only with the neglect of their own work, &/or not up-to-date with
what's going on in economics (Tony)
Of course (Tony)
> Lists of people who have complained about the state of the subject seem
> to me to be of limited interest in themselves.
But what Neil asked for (and got off me at least) was how to locate
chapter and verse on a significant number of such criticisms - viz in
the current output of an 8 year research project, my paper:
"Models without Theorization: .." that can be found on my web page
<http://mk.dmu.ac.uk/~mwilliam>. An earlier partial survey of mine
probably contains even more (The Philosophy of Economics: a critical
survey, *School of Social Sciences, De Montfort University,
Discussions Papers in Economics* 95-02, July 1995; this will soon be
available on-line through WopEc).
.. I have drawn Neil's attention to this paper to
*help* him with his research, not to pretend to do it on the list.
>
> 1. We all have a grouse from time to time don't we? Neil Buchanan's
> original post remarked that it was particularly economists over the age
> of 60 who were prone to complain. Don't you find that (some) older
> people in all walks of life complain that things aren't what they used
> to be? It is when the young people are dissatisfied that you need to
> worry.
I don't buy this put down . Most of the serious criticisms that I
have seen are nothing to do with things not being what they used to
be, but are about how they have always been flawed. As well as
anomie, age and experience might possibly bring wisdom, no more need
to smooze the gate-keeprs of orthodoxy, etc., etc. IMO scholars'
motivations are not terribly helpful in evaluating what they are
saying. The question is: do their argument and evidence stand up to
scrutiny. I guess you could say Descartes had a disposition to
complain.
>
> 2. Isn't a good researcher perennially dissatisfied with the existing
> state of knowledge? That is the motive to try to improve it. What are
> these people dissatisfied about? Are they all saying the same thing? Is
> it 'not enough people are working in my field and citing my papers'?
The criticisms to which I am pointing are much more than these kinds
of prolegomena to genuine improvements, and there are consistent
general themes.
..
>
> 3. Such grouses need a date and a context attached.
Of course they do. But, imo, lists such as this are places to
exchange information and ideas to help along research - not to either
do or present the details of that research.
> We are historians, aren't we?
Many of you are. But I have no indication that the critical
edge of the arguments which are at issue (mostly from the last 25
years or so) would be significantly blunted by further examination of
the intellectual cultural or social context. Legitimate and interesting
as such research is, it does not warrant us pretending we know
nothing because we don't know everything.
> My memory says that in the 1970s there was
> quite a widespread feeling that there was something wrong, but that
> it has declined sharply. In the 1970s people were complaining about
> general equilibrium (GE) theory, then seen as the pinnacle of the
> subject. Now, no one cares about GE theory one way or the other - the action is
> elsewhere. Is the incidence of complaining rising or falling? How does
> it compare with other fields?
The critique reported in my papers goes well into the 1980s and
1990s. I do not think that a perusal of the leading Journals would
support the hypothesis of the demise of GE. (Another research
project.) Many of the general (i.e. methodological based) criticisms
hit home at the rational-choice/equilibrium core, whether general or
partial, that has not, contrary to much loose talk (particularly in
the attempt to discredit Daniel Hausman's carefully argued book *The
Inexact and Separate Science of Economics*), been transcended by the
revival of game-theory and related developments, nor by the rather
abrupt decision that we allegedly no longer need any
choice-theoretic grounding for macroeconomics.
Many of the comments about the 'inapplicability' of game-theoretic
models come from eminent game-theorists. Was GE in more favour in
the 1970s at least in part because it was not susceptible to the
Cambridge capital critique - which may come creeping back to haunt
those who would abandon GE and microfoundations for macroeconomics?
Orthodox economics, when it hasn't ignored methodology altogether,
has picked up and put down 'philosophies of science' in rapid
succession (another research project?) as each in turn promised and
then failed to legitimate the disciplines excessive focus on formal
modelling, and neglect of interpretation (positivism,
descriptivism, instrumentalism/ pragmatism, falsificationism, Kuhnian
paradigm shifts, Lakatosian Scientific Research Programmes,
post-modernism/rhetoric, (varieties of) realism, constructive
empircism (van Fraassen), causal holism ... ).
Tony, you are right, lists of names per se are not interesting. But
neither is the procedural ducking and weaving that greets attempts at
any general critique of economic orthodoxy. Economic Orthodoxy is not
under threat - heterodoxy is more marginalised in economics
than in any other discipline I know. But I fear economics
institutional solidity is not matched by its intellectual credentials
- which is what many of the economists (and others knowledgeable
about economics) are reported as saying. Something worth collecting
and collating, then, as well, as, of course, contextualising and
critically appraising. Go to it Neil!
Dr Michael Williams
Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences
De Montfort University
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