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Though it is Christmas day, on which my ideology says not to play devil's advocate, I am
giving up ideology.
For half a century, the idea of positive economics has inspired great many economists to
look at data and leave ideology behind. I do not claim that statistics is not liable to be
damn lie plus, but I do claim that at least those who look at data are often compelled to
accept positions that clash with their ideological biases. May be some economist ought to
do a thin history of how economists dealt with the accusation of being normative rather
than positive.
I for one do not believe that all pursuit of knowledge is ideological. As a peasant who
happens to be an economist, I desperately want agriculture to remain a mainstay of the
economy, but facts tell me that it is not to be. I reluctantly recognize the data that
indicate that agriculture is doomed to be a smaller and smaller player in the economy.
And having spent several years trying to organize a communist group, and seeing first
hand that the bottom line is that no revolutionary is willing to surrender his own private
wealth to a commune I proposed (to which I wanted to donate a large estate), but they
really want to engage in pure and simple armed robbery; and seeing the collapse of
communism, I have reluctantly given up the communist ideology. I do not like it at all,
but I see that Marx did not distinguish between family and strangers. Inside the family,
the division of labor and distribution of output are really conducted according to the
dictum: from each according to ability, to each according need. But between strangers, the
same pathos does not work. In the state of nature, strangers plunder or hunt down each
other. In a market economy, they set up institutions of payment, so that one can pay for
what belongs to a stranger to get it. In the market, the dictum is: from each according to
profit, and to each according to payment.
I have not read everything written by David Colander to be able to say if he is hiding
ideology behind some pretense of science. But I am not worried by the warning that
ideology is hiding. This is because my pursuit of knowledge is engineered with some tools
that allow me to detect ideology . One of these tools is known as datum.
There is no doubt that people in power hire economists, and sometimes pay them well, and
the research agendum reflects the employer's interests. But the same applies to engineers
and doctors. I do not believe that an engineer can build an ideological railway, or a
doctor prescribes an ideo logical medicine. An economist cannot ignore the realities which
are pertinent to his research. Changes in economic policy do not occur for shifts in
ideology, but because economists look at how the policies work or fail to work and what
may be expected to improve performance. As a consultant whose livelihood depends on
studying government projects, I can testify that bureaucrats are quite adamant about
getting the facts right. Politicians do not announce bad news, but economists are hired to
dissect bad news and find workable remedies.
But I do suspect that the available paradigms have major limitations. Using an analogy, I
would say that today's economists want to see with the naked eye what cannot be seen
except with good microscopes. They of course make mistakes, because they do not have the
data on the things they cannot even see with their present tools of observation. But I am
not convinced that David Colander sees the bacteria but for ideological reasons, keeps it
hidden and proceeds as if bacteria do not exist.
So I will end with a plea. Give us a tool to kill ideology. Show us how to kill ideology.
Give us some ideology-free economics.
But if the idea is that all knowledge is ideological, then I just do not see what is
wrong if some knowledge is ideological.
Now, don't forget to eat well today. On this day, stay cheerful.
Mohammad Gani
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