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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:52 2006 |
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Eric, I agree with your recent message. And I admire
your dealing with my attempt at rhetoric.
To get directly to your original point, I agree that
one runs the "risk of introducing/disguising gendered
or other contested values" when one makes decisions to
individuate and aggregate. On the other hand, the
complexity of economic interaction requires
"individuation," in the form of constructing roles,
functions, and personifications. It also requires
aggregation of a sort that assumes common yet variable
characteristics among large numbers of individuals
acting in the same role.
Such procedures are risky but there is no other way
for economists to go about their business.
The ultimate question for you, I presume, is what that
business is. For me it is the evaluation of arguments
favoring or opposing a policy to intervene in a market
economy in ways other than those that are necessary to
maintain it. Maintenance requires the internal setting
and enforcement of private property rights and
protection against attack from outside. I argue that
one can evaluate most arguments by using the logic
that has been developed in the literary form of
neoclassical economics, including the law of demand.
There is a risk, to be sure. But I think that the risk
can be minimized by focusing on the logical evaluation
of interventionist arguments. The risk would be much
greater if one's aim was to justify a proposal for a
better world.
HESers, I have found, are not too interested in
defining economics. So you are probably correct in
your assessment of the discussion of feminist
economics, although I have not followed it closely
enough to cite cases. But your initial comment was
about "economists (as a group)."
Pat Gunning
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