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.

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
>



-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
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