I very much applaud Steve Meardon for his intervention. I wasn't going
to read all of the Executive Committee Statement. The first two
sentences were a put-off for me. I saw the piece as a kind of "virtue
signalling," not worth my bother. But because of Steve's post and the
comments it has generated, I've gone back to read the whole statement,
and then re-read Steve's post. I couldn't agree with Steve more.
Steve very well reflects the warm friendships I've felt since
participating at HES conferences from 1983, Charlottesville, VA. Through
the subsequent years I can recall the warmth of people like Jerry
Evensky, Bob Clower, Stanley Bober, Larry Moss, Petur Jonsson, Larry
Boland, Michael Goozeit, Michael Perelman, Steve Kates, Don Matthews,
Dave Colander, and Roger Sandilands. Such a mix of ideological or
theoretical perspectives my list makes. If there was racial
discrimination towards me, I must have been too blind not to have
noticed it. Anyhow, just as I don't make friends with everybody I
meet, I don't expect personal liking from everyone else. I think
economists should be the last among those to be told the meaning of
individual choice-making.
So, thank you Steve. I hope signers of the statement take your comments
seriously. How appalling that someone thinks white people should be
silent over debate on racism? Terrible that the "cancel culture" would
find its invitation to an academic community like HES. Or is it because
they share BLM's agenda on a social revolution in America? Totally
extraneous to the mission of the History of Economics Society.
James Ahiakpor
Stephen Meardon wrote:
> I am sure the HES Executive Committee makes this statement with no
> intention of taking a side in the US culture war. But that is what it
> does. And it does no good for the HES.
>
> People have been killed in the custody of US police, some of them
> egregiously. What the killings signify in some cases is not largely
> contested. In others it is. What they signify on the whole is
> contested very much.
>
> Systemic racism? One can make an argument. I can see it. Why is the
> History of Economics Society, whose mission is to advance inquiry into
> the named subject, advancing this extraneous and contested argument?
>
> We have a good thing going in our society. An uncommon thing. Scholars
> with different ideological, methodological, and other convictions
> communicate openly, learn from one another, and take pleasure in each
> other's company and conversation despite their disagreements. Indeed
> because of them. It works because the HES does not suffer from the we-
> all-agree syndrome that plagues other scholarly societies and US
> academia at large. Which happens in good part because the HES sticks
> to its mission.
>
> You and I just might have an interesting conversation about systemic
> racism in the United States -- why you think it is the salient problem,
> why I think not. The kind of conversation that has been commonplace in
> HES coffee breaks and serendipitous hallway encounters for the couple
> decades and more that I've been involved. That conversation will be
> less common after the HES has decided which of us is right. Try
> thinking how frequently and freely you've heard such a conversation on
> any US university campus of late.
>
> The scope of permissible conversation in US academic life is narrowing.
> If there is a salient social problem in the United States that relates
> to the mission of the HES, that's it.
>
> The HES has been an academic oasis where the range of values and scope
> of conversation is great. I hope the HES Exec. will take care in the
> future to preserve it.
>
> Stephen Meardon
> Bowdoin College
--
James C.W. Ahiakpor, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Economics
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, CA 94542
510-885-3137
510-885-7175 (Fax; Not Private)
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