------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Published by EH.NET (February 2006)  
  
Philip Mirowski, _The Effortless Economy of Science?_ Durham, NC:   
Duke University Press, 2004. v + 463 pp. $25 (paperback), ISBN:   
0-8223-3322-8.  
  
Reviewed for EH.NET by Lawrence Boland, Department of Economics,   
Simon Fraser University.  
  
  
This book is a collection of sixteen essays of which six were   
published in readily available journals and eight in collections. In   
addition to the Introduction, there is one original essay at the   
beginning. All of them will provide new evidence for Mirowski's   
critics, particularly those who complain about his over-the-top style.  
  
The common thread for the essays is that all are about heretics --   
starting with Mirowski himself. Readers with first-hand familiarity   
with the academic life of a heretic will easily appreciate these   
essays. The sub-theme for all of the essays is a challenge for the   
common view that in science there is a market place for ideas. The   
sub-theme is common place in so-called Science Studies and apparently   
even in some Philosophy of Science literature.  
  
Much of this book will be familiar to readers of Mirowski's previous   
books. But the focus throughout is what he calls the   
science-economics nexus. In his _Machine Dreams_ that nexus concerns   
how modern economics is financially promoted by outside agencies such   
as the U.S. Air Force and Naval Research, etc. One could say that   
even though the economics of research matters, it is not a "market   
place of ideas" as some would claim, but (I would say) a competition   
for "shelf space." As is well known in the grocery store business   
with the Pepsi-Coke wars, this is not really a case of perfect   
competition. _Machine Dreams_ explains why the competition was not   
market-based and to a great extent rigged. The heretics discussed   
here were the ones unable to get shelf space and the question   
addressed is why.  
  
The book is divided into five parts. In Part One, after an   
introduction that explains everything one needs to know about the   
essays, Mirowski begins by confessing to being an aging enfant   
terrible. In Part Two, he begins his critical examination of those   
who try to see science as a "market place of ideas" and other   
attempts to characterize science by using characterizations of   
society. The chief heretic to be examined is Michael Polanyi who is   
of primary interest because he explicitly tried to create an   
economics of science. Thomas Kuhn comes in for critical examination   
for his attempt to create a sociology of science, as does the   
philosopher of science Philip Kitcher who goes so far as to use   
neoclassical and game theory as a basis for characterizing social   
structure of science. Of particular concern is the apparent   
privatization of science which seems to be rendering ordinary   
academic science journals to be useless.  
  
Part Three raises many questions concerning the naive presumptions of   
economists and social scientists about numbers and constants that   
they think can be found in natural sciences. One issue raised is that   
too often social scientists think that measurements involve a natural   
process when in fact even in physics the constants needed to   
establish measurements depend on the stability other alleged   
constants and thus can often be open to question. Part Four takes   
this into the common quantitative territory of econometrics. In   
particular, Mirowski takes on the proponents of Cliometrics and the   
naive presumptions of proponents of rational expectations, as well as   
others who equate neoclassical rationality with economic success. He   
provides evidence of a convincing counter-example to such   
presumptions. The more general questions involve when economists   
adopt the latest mathematical fad to model neoclassical economics   
without thinking things through. This discussion involves another   
heretic, Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician who understood the limits   
of mathematical model building.  
  
Part Five strikes at the heart of neoclassical economics, the   
so-called Laws of Supply and Demand. The chief heretic here is   
William Thomas Thornton who was a friend of John Stuart Mill and yet   
was critical of the Laws of Supply and Demand and in particular the   
basic notion of such a thing as a demand or supply curve that is   
taken for granted in textbooks today. Armed with Thornton's   
perspective, Mirowski turns to the obvious culprit, Alfred Marshall,   
whose presentation of demand and supply curves is the fountainhead of   
almost every neoclassical textbook. This part closes out with a   
consideration of historiographical questions that might be asked by a   
wise historian of science. The heretic here is Henry Ludwell Moore,   
who Mirowski argues began an empirical approach to economics that was   
intended to be a critique of Marshallian demand and supply analysis   
contrary to conventional wisdom. And in the last and most difficult   
chapter, the challenge for historians of economic thought is how they   
go about reconciling ordinary demand and supply analysis or market   
exchange analysis as a view of science with an alternate view that   
might see sciences as a "gift economy".  
  
An obvious audience for this book is all of the aspiring heretics out   
there who will find Chapter 1 to be particularly interesting.   
Obviously, it is a book that should be read by all true-believers in   
neoclassical economics. But since economics today is being taught as   
if it is a matter of catechism rather than critical thinking, there   
is probably not much hope. Surely, historians of thought can find a   
lot here to cause them to reconsider some sacred cows.  
  
  
Lawrence Boland's recent publications include _Foundations of   
Economic Methodology: A Popperian Perspective_, free PDF copies of   
his previous five books and many other publications can be found at   
www.sfu.ca/~boland.  
  
Copyright (c) 2006 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be   
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to   
the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the   
EH.Net Administrator ([log in to unmask]; Telephone: 513-529-2229).   
Published by EH.Net (February 2006). All EH.Net reviews are archived   
at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.  
  
-------------- FOOTER TO EH.NET BOOK REVIEW  --------------  
EH.Net-Review mailing list  
[log in to unmask]  
http://eh.net/mailman/listinfo/eh.net-review