On 06/08/2011 02:41 PM, michael perelman wrote:
> As a Marxist classified with "racists, religious zealots,
> nationalists," I wonder what the response would be if I classified
> neo-classical economists with Fascists.  People would rightly respond
> that such a suggestion would be something between ugly and stupid.
No, not if you gave it a fancy name, like Polygonism.

John

> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 9:56 AM, Pat Gunning<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>> Turpin's book, as reported by Donald Fry is an excellent example of what
>> Ludwig von Mises called POLYLOGISM.
>>
>> Polylogism is the "theory that the logical structure of the human mind
>> differs according to certain divisions of mankind and that as a result the
>> ideas and logic of men also differ in accordance with the specified
>> classification of men. Marxian polylogism asserts there are differences
>> according to social classes. Others claim there are differences according to
>> race, religion, nationality, etc." (Percy Greaves)
>> http://mises.org/easier/P.asp#33
>>
>> In the past, this theory was proposed by Marxists, racists, religious
>> zealots, nationalists, and so on. Now it is presented by a professor of
>> communication, who presumably recognizes that different people speak
>> different languages but denies that they have a common deep structure.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_structure
>>
>> Mises believed that the main motive for polylogism was to attack the use of
>> economics in evaluating economic policy. He writes that a "consistent
>> supporter of polylogism would have to maintain that ideas are correct
>> because their author is a member of the right class, nation, or race."
>> See section 2 of
>> http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/HmA/msHmA3.html
>>
>> Apparently, Turpin believes that he has the "right" attitude about
>> distribution, which trumps the traditional economic theory of the classical
>> and early neoclassical economists. The moral view he presents is based on a
>> "conflict, survivalist view" of an economy. This view sees an economy as an
>> interaction that determines who gets what, and not an interaction that
>> determines how individuals come to produce the mountains of consumer goods
>> that can be observed in the department stores, supermarkets and shipping
>> depots. Who could reasonably deny that Smith held the latter view of an
>> economy and that this is mainly what future generations learned from Smith's
>> writings?
>>
>>
>> On 6/7/2011 6:05 PM, Humberto Barreto wrote:
>>> ------ EH.NET<http://eh.net/>  BOOK REVIEW ------
>>> Title: The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy: Justice and Modern
>>> Economic
>>> Thought
>>>
>>> Published by EH.NET<http://eh.net/>  (June 2011)
>>>
>>> Paul Turpin, /The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy: Justice and Modern
>>> Economic Thought/. New York: Routledge, 2011. xv + 163 pp. $115
>>> (hardcover),
>>> ISBN: 978-0-415-77392-8.
>>>
>>> Reviewed for EH.Net by Donald E. Frey, Department of Economics, Wake
>>> Forest
>>> University.
>>>
>>> Paul Turpin’s thesis is that Adam Smith’s theory of a self-regulating
>>> economy was only plausible if it rested on the values and customs of the
>>> commercial society of his time and place. Smith’s ideal economy could
>>> operate without the regulating role for church and state only because the
>>> constraints of the “social decorum” of his society took their place.
>>> However, reliance on social decorum creates a paradox for the theory of
>>> “natural liberty” because “at the very moment it dismisses dogma
>>> [church] and ancient custom [the feudal state] with one hand, it
>>> reintroduces
>>> a dogmatic decorum with the other. ... People are free to be themselves as
>>> long as they correspond to the right decorum [of the commercial society]”
>>> (p.10).  Thus, the system of natural liberty imposes its own conformity.
>>>
>>> Using traditional terminology, Turpin argues that the decorum of this
>>> society
>>> was that of “commutative” justice -- the values that allow commerce to
>>> function, such as high regard for property rights, contracts, voluntary
>>> trading, competitive efficiency, etc.  But the tilt in that direction
>>> largely banished issues of “distributive justice” from the public sphere.
>>> When distributive issues occasionally intruded into the public arena, they
>>> were narrowly defined by the market mentality: distributive justice was
>>> reduced to the question of the rightness of the distribution of economic
>>> rewards received by people. And what is right is whatever results from the
>>> workings of a competitive market -- an answer that reverts to commutative
>>> categories.
>>>
>>> Broader distributive issues exist, Turpin insists: namely, what is one’s
>>> place in society and one’s relationship to that society? Smith left this
>>> to
>>> be decided in the private arena by the decorum of the existing society,
>>> and
>>> largely kept these questions out of the public arena. Turpin points out
>>> that
>>> such private-sector decorum worked at various times to subordinate, not
>>> liberate, groups of people (consider the role of women) -- an outcome
>>> hardly
>>> consistent with a system of natural liberty. This reviewer thinks Turpin
>>> could have gone even further: the thought-patterns taught by commerce may
>>> invade the “private” realm and turn even personal relationships into
>>> forms of economic transactions or calculations (a process written about in
>>> Robert Bellah’s /Habits of the Heart/).
>>>
>>> Turpin defines distributive justice in terms of human relationships, which
>>> includes full membership in society for all: “having a recognized place in
>>> society is something people need to develop their own identities. ...
>>> [and]
>>> /people as-they-are are recognized as belonging/, as being members” (p.
>>> 106, emphasis added). That is, one’s security as a member of society does
>>> not need to be proportional to one’s economic productivity (or merely
>>> one’s high income), an affirmation that flies in the face of much of the
>>> practice of modern commercial cultures.  Smith considered some provision
>>> for
>>> the poor in /The Wealth of Nations/, as befit the “decorum” of his time.
>>> But for the “liberal” society, which followed him, removal of
>>> non-competitive hindrances to earning one’s income became almost the only
>>> public obligation to distributive justice. Turpin says that such a society
>>> would still leave people with existential insecurity, “the frightening
>>> prospect of not-belonging, of being abandoned (p. 121).
>>>
>>> Turpin is a professor of communication, and supports his thesis by a close
>>> look at Smith’s rhetoric. / The Wealth of Nations/ rhetorically appeals to
>>> the reader’s sympathetic response to familiar commercial behaviors, which
>>> Smith praises as virtues. In /Wealth/, Smith also encourages his reader’s
>>> lack of sympathy for monopolists, whose motives are portrayed as wicked.
>>> That
>>> is, Smith’s rhetoric is that of moral blame and praise. Turpin argues that
>>> this resolves the famous “Das Adam Smith problem.”  The “sympathy”
>>> of /The Theory of Moral Sentiments/ has not disappeared from /The Wealth
>>> of
>>> Nations/ after all. While sympathy for others might not motivate economic
>>> actors, Smith appeals to the sympathetic response of his audience: “The
>>> sympathy of the reader for the judgments of Smith’s implied reader creates
>>> a formidable orientation toward competition, legitimating both formal and
>>> informal institutions” (p. 40).
>>>
>>> Although much changed between Smith’s and Milton Friedman’s times,
>>> Friedman’s popular writing ignored that intervening history that had given
>>> people good reason to turn against laissez-faire. In /Capitalism and
>>> Freedom/, “Friedman sums up nearly one hundred years of the heart of the
>>> modern era with no analysis at all about why or how welfare replaced
>>> freedom
>>> as a dominant concern” (p. 68).  Turpin describes Friedman’s strategy as
>>> being very similar to that of Smith: namely to advocate for individual
>>> freedom as the social norm, while actually promoting a particular social
>>> decorum that is necessary for it to work. “The dissonance between these
>>> two
>>> social orders, the ideal and the actual, is what finally emerges as a
>>> problem” (p. 75). As with Smith, Friedman’s “discussion of justice is
>>> actually about commutative justice, not distributive justice” (p. 74).
>>> Justice is merely “payment in accordance with product.” The fact that
>>> Friedman had a large modern following suggests that the values of our
>>> commercial culture have blinded many of us to what a minimalist,
>>> impoverished
>>> notion of justice this really is.
>>>
>>> Turpin is in good company in defining distributive justice much more
>>> broadly
>>> -- to include the affirmation of membership in, and participation in,
>>> one’s
>>> society or community. Arthur Okun’s well-known essay, “Equality and
>>> Efficiency: The Big Trade-Off,” spoke of the fundamental importance of
>>> affirming the full membership of people in their society; distributive
>>> justice went beyond income distribution, as important as it was. Okun
>>> argued
>>> explicitly that some things (e.g., voting rights, academic honors, or
>>> marks
>>> of athletic excellence) should be excluded from the market. Otherwise
>>> society
>>> would be no more than a “giant vending machine,” and recognition of
>>> one’s human standing no more than a commodity. There is a long tradition
>>> among humanist thinkers, religious thinkers, and others, that a good
>>> society
>>> is marked by concern for one’s identity, found in community.  For example,
>>> a 1986 pastoral letter of the American Catholic bishops was explicit about
>>> giving up some economic “efficiency” (i.e., deviating from a key norm of
>>> the commercial society) to support the viability of existing communities
>>> and
>>> the sense of place they represented for their members. Well before Adam
>>> Smith, John Amos Comenius, the education reformer and Protestant bishop,
>>> envisioned a humane society that respected people, and their human dignity
>>> --
>>> starting with children.
>>>
>>> Turpin’s book approaches his economic subject from a multi-disciplinary
>>> perspective. His own field is communications (hence the title), but he is
>>> at
>>> home with the relevant economic and philosophical literature. Not
>>> surprisingly, Turpin prefers philosophy rooted in communications theory;
>>> but
>>> this is an apt choice. This philosophy views social-ethical norms as
>>> emerging
>>> from moral discourse among members of a community (he speaks of
>>> “discourse” communities).  Human relationships imply discourse, and
>>> moral norms are nothing, if not about human relationships.  If norms are
>>> dictated by the social decorum of a certain society (which always seems to
>>> have inherent biases favoring some groups), they are not aids to freedom,
>>> but
>>> straitjackets for at least some members of that society. The laissez-faire
>>> system of natural liberty is not so free.
>>>
>>> Turpin brings a fresh and important interpretation to the history of moral
>>> thought embedded in political economy. This book presents an impressive
>>> multi-disciplinary argument that is provocative, convincing, and
>>> consistent
>>> with what other observers have noted about the ills of a society modeled
>>> on
>>> an eighteenth-century ideal. Economists should consider Turpin’s idea that
>>> answers to problems of economic morality could emerge from human
>>> discourse.
>>> The alternative is to be mute about moral issues, thereby leaving the
>>> status
>>> quo to provide the answers.
>>>
>>> Donald E. Frey is the author of /America’s Economic Moralists: A History
>>> of
>>> Rival Ethics and Economics/ (State University of New York Press, 2009)
>>>
>>> Copyright (c) 2011 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]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>). Published by EH.Net
>>> (June 2011). All EH.Net reviews
>>> are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
>>>
>>> Geographic Location: General, International, or Comparative
>>> Subject: History of Economic Thought; Methodology
>>> Time: 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century: Pre WWII, 20th Century:
>>> WWII
>>> and post-WWII
>> --
>> Pat Gunning
>> Professor of Economics
>> Melbourne, Florida
>> http://www.nomadpress.com/gunning/welcome.htm
>>
>
>