==================== HES POSTING ====================
Some belated further comments, with respect to comments from Colander &
Gunning
1. The original question from Cullenberg related to
"the origin, and development of, the rise to dominance in U.S. especially
of neoclassical economics in graduate education". Gunning hypothesizes as
to the reasons for its origins in the US. My difference relates to the
significance of the school in the early part of the century - my reading
indicates that (by contrast with England) neoclassical practitioners were
not a major force until after World War II. Others, longer in the tooth
and more deeply versed in institutional history might want to offer an
opinion on what still remains unclarified in the discussion.
2. a propos Colander's propositions, it seems to me that:
a. the post-WWII attachment to neoclassical economics is not synonymous
with individual's political preferences or how they vote. The
'Samuelson-Solow-Arrow' nexus is not liberal (nor any part of the
political spectrum); it's depoliticised techniques. Samuelson's 1947
Foundations is a classic elaboration of the neoclassical conceptual
apparatus. Many economists appear to be happy to live in separate
compartments; their views on politics can differ markedly from what they
would prefer or are prepared to tolerate in the syllabus.
b. neoclassical economics is not a useful analytical structure for the
comprehension of 'market' economies. The defence of market economies is
a separate issue from the defence of neoclassical economics in the
syllabus and as an appropriate 'research programme'. Schumpeter was
offering this point decades ago, mostly notably in Capitalism Socialism
and Democracy, and his credentials are impeccable.
Why marginalise the Institutionalists? They were trying both to criticise
and reform (and thus ultimately defend) the 'market economy' as they
interpreted it. For example, Commons (Legal Foundations ...) thought he
was dealing explicitly with property rights etc whereas the neoclassical
tradition merely takes it all for granted.
Superior treastments of 'the market mechanism' are now occurring outside
economics, by default. HES had a discussion about precisely this
issue in the middle of 1998, discussing the Polanyi heritage, etc.
In short, regardless of economists' politics and the considerable merits
of the market-based economic system, we still have yet to get to the
bottom of the attraction of neoclassical economics. Game theory has
certainly taken off, not least because it combines more robust
environmental assumptions with economists' attractions to methodological
individualism, assumed self-interest, and instrumental rationality. But
game theory doesn't deliver the determinism that has made neoclassical
economics so attractive (part of the reason why Nash symmetry has been so
appealing to game theorists themselves). Determinism and its close
relative, equilbrium, are still there in the interstices of the
respectable discourse of economists. The attraction to neoclassical
economics in the syllabus and as a research programme needs to be
explained not by the political perspectives of economists nor by the
merits of 'real world' market economies but by factors relating to its
intrinsic substance.
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