Our Standard Bearers  
  
  
   Pat Gunning has repeatedly asked: who sets the standards? In my eyes, this  
   issue belongs to epistemology. However, the HES forum may wish to consider  
   it because at least one strand of historical scholarship involves evaluation  
   of past ideas according to some (often unstated) standards.  
  
  
   I guess that it will be helpful to divide the issues of standards in a four  
   part scheme. I will call them worldview, epistemology, methodology and  
   rhetoric because if there are standards, they pertain to one of the four  
   items above. The reason I want to categorize them is that there are four  
   different  classes  of concerns as we try to assess the validity of an  
   argument.  Let us begin at the beginning: what do we perceive we are talking  
   about?  
  
  
   I seem to see two very distinct perceptions in regard to worldview. The  
   classical perception seems to be that there is a reality called the economy,  
   exemplified by a national economy such as that of Canada. In this economy,  
   observable  economic events of production and consumption and exchange  
   happen, with many events associated with the exchange process that links  
   production to consumption.  
  
  
   The neoclassical worldview in contrast does not consider a national economy,  
   but the household economy of an isolated individual. Analytically, it is  
   concerned   with  the  abstract  principle  of  economy  (economizing,  
   optimization).  There  is no exchange at all, but substitution in both  
   production and consumption. In this world, there is no selling other than  
   the  very  act  of production, that is, nobody sells something without  
   producing it. There is also no buying other than consumption, that is,  
   nobody buys something without the intention to consume it.  
  
  
   To  me  the  classical perception seems to make more sense. It is more  
   complete, and more amenable to empirical validation. It is clearer.  
  
  
   Let us now try to see if we are dealing with any kind of standards here.  
  
  
   First, it seems that the word standpoint is more meaningful than the word  
   standard here. An individual economist has a choice between adopting one of  
   the two alternative worldviews or standpoints, and there is no superior  
   standard  to tell us which to choose. It is inevitable that instead of  
   adopting some universal standard, we are free to succumb to a clan structure  
   of like-minded fish joining a school swimming together. It is not a choice  
   between truth or error, but an emotional sense of satisfaction or comfort:  
   one  may  feel  more  comfortable  swimming  with the classical or the  
   neoclassical school of fish.  By some miracle, an all new school may also  
   emerge someday.  
  
  
   The reason I bring up images of fish is that the fish of a school may not  
   necessarily be foraging for the same food like other schools, but may have a  
   different  foraging  zone  called epistemology, which describes what a  
   particular school wants. Methodology describes what method a particular  
   school adopts to carry out its epistemological goal. I do not see how to say  
   that one school is underfed or starving while another is eating well.  
  
  
   Now  I have pushed myself to a bad corner, supposing that there are no  
   standards, but merely standpoints. There is a great lot in the history of  
   ideas to suggest that indeed economic thinking developed in diverse strands.  
   All that remains then is to embark on a rhetoric war of words: I told you I  
   know better, while the prospective listener is not even listening.  
  
  
   I do not feel happy to admit that I am doomed to take a stand somewhere and  
   fail to see the world from other standpoints. My aspiration is to look at my  
   world from many angles and gather a more satisfying or clearer view.  Hence  
   I come back to a very old dream: I cannot hope to find the truth, but please  
   grant me better vision to see the world a little more clearly.  
  
  
   Then  of  course  it is back to the same old quarrel. The neoclassical  
   worldview seems to be nearly blind to me, and things are not clear, but  
   jumbled up in a horrendously unclear and indistinct mass. My opponent my say  
   with equal disdain that I am blind.  
  
  
   I am struggling to comfort myself that greater clarity is a kind of standard  
   that makes me feel more at ease. Secretly, I wish to hope that more and more  
   fish  would like clearer vision.  My hope is that if I see things more  
   clearly, I have greater confidence in what I believe I am seeing.  That  
   gives me ammunition to confront stray fish from other schools, and I tell  
   them: hey, you are not seeing what you think you are seeing. There is little  
   chance that such advice from my side will convince anybody not on my side.  
  
  
   Well, it is not that desperate. It is possible to develop portraits that  
   have clearer descriptions, and may be such portraits can attract unsure fish  
   to my school. So may be the New Years old resolution is to say: this year, I  
   wish to see better and paint clearer pictures.  
  
  
   Happy New Year  
  
  
   Mohammad Gani