Having read Turpin's book (which I suspect Pat hasn't), there is simply
no justification for Pat's charges. And of course, a term like
"polygonism" coupled with loaded terms like "racism" is hardly "merely
descriptive." So I understand Michael's reaction entirely.
John
On 06/08/2011 03:18 PM, Bylund, Per L (MU-Student) wrote:
> Well, I think there are many things in both economics and history (and other scientific disciplines) that "people" may respond to as being "between ugly and stupid." But I fail to see how this would be of any significance for us as scientists and researchers in trying to figure out the true nature of phenomena.
>
> I understood Pat's comment on polylogism, "ugly" or "stupid" or neither, as mostly descriptive. He summarizes Mises's discussion on polylogism - the applying of different types of logics on different (arbitrarily identified) classes of people - and applies it on Turpin's writing. And his conclusion is, as I understood it, that Turpin utilizes a perspective permeated by polylogism. I don't see how this in any way is an accusation of Marxists (or racists or whatever "group" that relies on polylogism), unless we accept guilt by association as an okay basis for drawing conclusions. Yet even so, the "association" is but the use of polylogism - but different kinds - so even those so inclined would find the link to be very weak.
>
> So I guess I do not understand Michael's reaction.
>
>
> Per Bylund
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of michael perelman
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 2:42 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Polylogism in Marxist and racist economic thought
>
> 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
> Chico, CA
> 95929
>
> 530 898 5321
> fax 530 898 5901
> http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
>
>
|
