We could go on playing tit for tat with textbook neoclassical versus 
textbook keynesian economics.  I would be happy to reply to all of your 
(James') responses in the last go round, if you'd like.  But just as I 
could have written your latest responses to my comments, you can probably 
anticipate more or less what the textbook keynesian response to your latest 
go round would be.  In fact, it might be a more interesting exercise in 
some ways if we'd exchange places, and each try to give the best possible 
arguments from the *other* side for a round or two, and then compare the 
other's argument to what we'd have said ourselves! 
 
This is not to belittle the real life implications of policies based on 
different theoretical approaches, the seriousness which has been expressed 
in the posts by Mary Schweitzer.  Rather, just when I was wondering why we 
hadn't changed the name of this thread to something else, it hit me that 
the issue of "proof" is still lurking in the background, though not perhaps 
in the way it was originally put forward. 
 
How do we choose between paradigms? Who is 'right'?  In many ways, at the 
level of abstraction and simplicity we were conducting our discussion in, 
it reminded me of the 'reversible' drawings which can be viewed in at least 
two different ways, such as the famous one that can be either a bird or an 
antelope, or the drawing of the three dimensional cube that can be 'seen' 
from either above or below (see, e.g., the fascinating discussion in 
Norwood Hanson's classic _Patterns of Discovery_).  This leads to issues of 
context-dependence of meaning and theory-ladeness of observation. 
 
This is not to say that I don't believe that one view is more 'correct' or 
'true'.  I believe that in the case of our discussion, the keynesian 
argument is relatively more accurate than the neoclassical (and I am not an 
uncritical admirer of keynes, btw), and I could harness an argument that 
included reference to empirical data, historical facts, logical consistency 
(and inconsistency), appeals to common-sense, methodological issues, etc., 
etc., to support my view, and would passionately do so in the case of a 
debate about policy in which I deeply believed the course taken would have 
real impact on our socio-economic and political order.  And I am sure that 
James or someone else could do the same in support of the neoclassical (or 
some other) view. 
 
But why do we 'believe' one (somewhat reasonable) view over another?  I 
think we cannot escape bringing in the role of something like Schumpeter's 
'vision', or Heilbroner's modification of that notion, or the notion of 
ideology.  Not ideology in the sense of intentional manipulation of facts 
and so on (though that exists of course) but rather in the sense of deeply 
held feelings, intuitions, beliefs about 'how things are', 'the way things 
work', 'human nature', and so on. 
 
But then who 'wins'?  Is it, as McCloskey argues, who tells the best story? 
 Or perhaps it is the paradigm that suits the interests of the most 
powerful.  Or...? 
 
___________________________________ 
 
Mathew Forstater      Department of Economics 
        Gettysburg College     Gettysburg, PA  17325 
 
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