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)
>
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> 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