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Much of Hammond's editorial makes good sense. Taxonomies
can distort our reading of the past. The terms
"monetarism" and "Keynesianism" can, as I have argued
elsewhere, prove too much of a straitjacket, even when
considering the macroeconomics of the past 50 years, let
along a much longer time span. But I think there are things
missing from Hammond's editorial.
First WHY DO WE USE TAXONOMIES? To make sense of what
would otherwise be a chaos of details. Hammond is right
here. But is there perhaps also an element of the
soundbite? To get cited, you have to be associated with a
clear-cut position that can be expressed succinctly.
Attractive labelling, even if oversimplified, is an
effective route to success in the modern academic world. We
thus have an incentive to produce simple, dramatic labels -
much like Hammond's taxonomies.
Second, I think Hammond is critical of those (eg Blaug)
he criticises, and too kind to Friedman. He gives two
examples of how people classify Friedman, yet both are
problematic.
FRIEDMAN'S METHODOLOGY: the point about classifying him as
instrumentalist, falsificationist, pragmatist,... is that
this says something about the epistemological basis on which
his arguments rest. If Hammond argued that Friedman fitted
none of these categories, I would not dissent. But he goes
on to suggest that we have a ready-made label in
"Marshallian". I agree entirely that Friedman is
Marshallian, but this does not, so far as I am aware,
identify his epistemology - it is not in the same category
as terms such as instrumentalist, pragmatist, realist...
Moreover, the term "Marshallian" is
perhaps sufficiently difficult to define that to use it
raises as many questions as it answers. Commentators have
been entirely right not simply to accept Friedman's
description of himself as Marshallian, but to inquire
further. (Maybe many people forgot important things about
Friedman when they did this, but that is a different
matter.)
FRIEDMAN AS A QUANTITY THEORIST: Maybe there are
difficulties with the precise details of Blaug's
definition, but if we add a few qualifications, surely
it gets pretty close to what most people would understand as
a reasonable definition of the QT or monetarism. As regards
Friedman, it is all very well citing his statements about
the endogeneity of the money supply, but much of his work
makes sense only if the supply of money is, to a significant
extent, determined by factors that are independent of the
demand for money - a statement which most people would
interpret as meaning that money supply should, in many
situations, be regarded as exogenous.
The passage Hammond cites, and Hammond's use of it to
question Blaug's definition of the QT, reminds me of
Tobin's complaint about Friedman's tendency, in debate, to
avoid the characteristic propositions of monetarism that are
associated with his name. Notwithstanding quotes like the
one Hammond uses, one could argue that much of Friedman's
work makes sense only if he adopts a view something like the QT as
defined by Blaug.
Back to taxonomies, I would draw from these examples the
conclusion that even when, as is almost always the case,
taxonomies do not work precisely, they can nonetheless be
useful. Blaug's definition of the quantity theory, I
suggest, is a sufficiently good approximation for many
purposes. We just have to be careful how we use them. This
is Hammond's message, even though my emphasis is slightly
different.
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Roger E. Backhouse [log in to unmask]
Department of Economics, University of Birmingham
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