[It appears some members of the HES list did not receive this response so I am
distributing it again. HB]
  
  
I've hesitated to reply to this thread, in part not wanting overly to promote the research
that David Levy and I have spent a great deal of time and energy on these past 5 years.
But I feel compelled to respond for 2 reasons, first once more to try to make the case to
the list that history matter.  Second and more substantially, I wish to point you to the
awful history of this idea of "race", which, as Evelyn Forget argued, has been socially
constructed.
   
In our book, The Vanity of the Philosopher, David Levy and I make the case that "race" is
in fact so much a social construct, that we should think instead in terms of "hierarchy"
and "equality".  Hence our subtitle is "From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical
Economics".  Perhaps the most ludicrous example of how "race" is conflated with economic
choices, comes in the image by Charles Bennett that has a woman who leaves the household
(to enter the labour market), transformed into a negro.  The artist is making a point
that, in the late nineteenth century, was not uncommon:  market transactions deform us.
Whether you are entirely happy with markets or not, the key point to take away is that
"race" was supposedly studied "scientifically" in the nineteenth century by
anthropologists, social scientists and biologists.  The texts are hard to read because
they are so flagrantly "racist", making whatever "scientific" case the "scientist" held
dear.  So, it was the Irish, women, Jews, former and existing slaves, the Red Indian, and,
later, east Europeans, who were "scientifically" shown to be inferior.  All of this, with
the supporting texts, is the subject of Vanity.  The very sad result is that the "science"
fed directly into eugenics, with such reputable persons as Karl Pearson "demonstrating"
the "inferiority" of Jewish immigrants into England.  Our chapter 5 in Vanity,
"Statistical Prejudice:  From Eugenics to Immigration", shows how results can and have
been manipulated to make the case for "inferiority".  I urge us all to learn from this
awful history, to take these texts seriously, and to recognize that the incentives for
showing "inferiority" are such that "inferiority" (or "superiority") can and will be
found, when in fact it simply doesn't exist.
   
Sandra Peart