Dear Prabhu,
Thank you for that excellent discussion of
reductionism, I agree totally about the
usefulness of reductionism, especially if we are
willing to recognize the distance between the
reductionist theory and the reality it
represents, a distance that is always present.
That is, it is useful to the degree that one does
not take it too seriously, to the degree that it
is not dogmatized. As soon as one dogmatizes the
theory, it ceases to have utility, since every
reductionism necessarily involves a distortion of
the concrete reality. In the case of marriage,
for example, one can (and must) discuss it under
the terms of a contract for certain purposes, but
this is useful so long as one does not mean to
exhaust the relationship in contractual terms.
Using a reductionist approach, Ricardo can come
up with the highly useful and enlightening theory
of Comparative Advantage. And there can be no
doubt that the theory is "true," theoretically.
But CA cannot be dogmatized so as to divorce it
from its social context. And indeed, Ricardo did
not dogmatize it, but surrounded it with a number
of implicit and explicit assumptions, assumptions
which can be critically examined and practically
applied. Further, (and here I am indebted to the
analysis of Prof. Asso), the entire classical and
neoclassical tradition is not unambiguous on this
question, even among free trade's most ardent
supporters. The best in the profession did not
divorce CA from its concrete instances and social
context. Yet now the theory is dogmatized so that
any question about the actual context of a trade,
any question about trade with slave economies of
trade at a chronic deficit for example, are met
with stony silence as questions beyond the pale,
as questions heterodox. Which brings us to the
question of the importance of history. You state,
>Critical defenders of the profession (among whom I certainly number
>myself - and perhaps you do too?) will always draw attention to the
>distance between aspiration (intersection with reality) and the current
>or historical state of the profession (those instances where it fails to
>intersect with reality).
>
>This raises the question of the criteria we use to evaluate the history
>of economics. Are we to evaluate our history from the viewpoint of the
>current orthodoxies of our profession? Or from a wider, human,
>viewpoint?
This, I think, gets to the central issues. In
most textbooks, the economic theories are
presented as pure received truth; orthodoxy
becomes mere dogma. I think the study of history
is the antidote to this dogmatizing tendency, and
that he who does not know the history of an idea,
does not really know the idea. Without history,
the present moment (and its received dogmas)
tends to displace every other moment and every
other point of view. I would contend that no
human idea can be understood apart from the
history that created it. It is not that there
exist no real truths, valid for all times and
places, but that even when dealing with these
truths, they are always expressed in human
language, a cultural artifact. A human expression
of the truth is always proximate, not absolute,
at least in any non-trivial case. When the
University of Chicago in 1972 dropped history as
a required study for graduate economics students,
they essentially dropped the serious study of
economics and replaced it with a training program
for practitioners of the received doctrines, a
practice conducted without a full understanding.
I think it is the major task of economic
historians (and of HES) to restore economics to
its proper place as an humane science, one that
cannot be divorced from the history and scientists who formed the science.
John C. Medaille
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