Let me put in a pitch for "economists as dentists" (although I prefer the term engineers) as well. Given economist's training, they have no background in answering big picture questions. Some might be good at it but it is not because of their economic training. Classical economists differentiated "statesmen" who dealt with policy questions (including big picture questions) that go far beyond economics, and "economic scientists" (I prefer economic engineers) who use a set of technical skills they have to help solve society's small problems. Today's economists are being trained to do the second, not the first--and I would argue that there is little in economic training that makes economists especially good at answering big picture questions--although I agree, it would be nice if the training included some of that as well. 

 

David Colander
CAJ Distinguished Professor of Economics
Department of Economics
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont, 05753
(802-443-5302)


-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 1:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Backhouse and Bateman, "Wanted: Worldly Philosophers"

Are we all supposed to set aside detailed inquiries into 'the business of 
every day life' and turn our attention wholly to the 'big picture'? There 
must be thousands of other economists like me who are diffident about our 
ability to add anything of value to the kind of conversation that Smith and 
Marx and Mill and Keynes and Hayek and Friedman are said to have promoted, 
and more modest in the scientific goals we set for ourselves. I hope that 
Paul's message is not that we are wasting our time.

Anthony Waterman

-----Original Message----- 
From: Paul Dudenhefer
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 8:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SHOE] Backhouse and Bateman, "Wanted: Worldly Philosophers"

As we all know, Roger and Brad's column has generated all sorts of
responses--many of them stimulating and illuminating in their own
right--but it seems fair to remind everyone that the purpose of their
article is to ask economists to engage again in the kind of big-picture
thinking that Smith and Marx and Mill and Keynes and Hayek and Friedman
engaged in. As they point out, the recent generations of economists have
been trained to take the "dentistry" approach, for reasons that are not
hard to understand. What Brad and Roger are calling for is for
economists to return again to discussing what has become its fundamental
subject, capitalism, developing a new vision of what capitalism is and
means, and, as they state in their concluding sentence, "asking the hard
questions that can shape a new vision of capitalism's potential."

Yours sincerely,
Paul

-- 
Paul Dudenhefer
Managing Editor, HOPE
213 Social Science Building
Box 90097
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0097
919-660-6899
www.dukeupress.edu
http://hope.econ.duke.edu/