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My name is Neil Buchanan, and I just joined this list today.  The list's 
editors have provided me with "rules of conduct" for new members to follow, 
which include the suggestion that I introduce myself in my first message. 
 
My research is primarily in empirical macroeconomics, but I also have 
graduate training and continuing strong interests in the history of 
economic thought and political economy. I am currently a visiting professor 
in the Department of Economics at Barnard College.  I have recently 
accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, half-time in 
the Economics Department and half-time as the director of a new research 
institute called the Center for Macroeconomic Policy.  I have already begun 
preliminary work in the latter capacity, as part of which I posted a query 
about articles bemoaning "the sorry state of economics" to two other 
discussion lists. 
 
I am very greatful to Mary Schweitzer for cross-posting my request to this 
list; and I would like to thank the many members of HES who have privately 
sent suggestions pursuant to my request.  There have been so many responses 
that it would be impractical for me to thank you all individually.  You 
have helped me enormously. 
 
I should also say that I would not normally post to a list on the first day 
that I signed up.  The custom of waiting thirty days, to get a sense of how 
the members of the list interact, seems to me to be a very sensible rule of 
thumb.  However, given the unique way in which my posting arrived here, and 
given the spate of responses it has evoked, I have been encouraged by 
several members to jump right in.  (If I have missed some of the discussion 
and inadvertently repeat arguments offered by others, I apologize.) 
 
My overall impression of the responses is that my request was generally 
accepted in the spirit in which it was intended.  It really was a simple 
request for information, after all.  However, a minority of the respondents 
have taken me to task for even thinking that such articles might be worth 
collecting. 
 
I guess it never occurred to anyone that I might have been collecting these 
articles in order to debunk them.  The assumption--correct, as it turns 
out--was that I was a critic; and I, therefore, had to be put in my place. 
One person admonished me off-list, saying that "I don't really see what the 
point is of collecting a list of papers which complain.  Let's get down to 
doing economics and doing it better". I find this level of 
hyper-sensitivity revealing. 
 
Chas Anderson responded on this list with a argument that is stunningly 
unvarnished: "Would you mind naming some 'of the most prominent 
mainstream economists' who are bemoaning the current state of economics? I 
find that individuals who write these types of works are usually those who 
have unsuccessfully struggled with the discipline and have turned to 
non-rigorous approaches to economics, such as offered by political or 
socio-economic tracts." 
 
So there we have argument #1: Those Who Complain About Economics Are 
Non-Rigorous _Social_ Scientists, i.e., Math Wimps.  If I had tried to 
imagine the most bald-faced form of this argument, I could never have come 
up with anything so lacking in subtlety as this.  It is also entirely 
uninformed, since some of the people who have written the most critical of 
these articles are the very people who mathematized the discipline: 
Samuelson, Leontief, Solow, just to name three Math Studs. 
 
On this list, Tony Brewer wrote the following: 
 
"Lists of people who have complained about the state of the subject seem 
to me to be of limited interest in themselves. 
 
"1. We all have a grouse from time to time don't we? Neil Buchanan's 
original post remarked that it was particularly economists over the age 
of 60 who were prone to complain. Don't you find that (some) older 
people in all walks of life complain that things aren't what they used 
to be? It is when the young people are dissatisfied that you need to 
worry." 
 
This is Argument #2, It's Really Just a Bunch of Old Complainers, So We Can 
Safely Ignore Them (just as we ignore old people in general).  This is 
simply the invocation of a stereotype about older people, used as an _ad 
hominem_ attack to undermine their credibility as intellectual beings, 
What strikes me about this argument, though, is that one suspects that the 
argument could just as easily be reversed.  Imagine that the complaints 
were coming from younger writers.  The reponse becomes: "Don't you find 
that (some) younger people in all walks of life complain about things that 
they do not yet fully understand?  It is when the older people are 
dissatisfied that you need to worry."  In other words, it is always 
possible to use innuendo to discredit the messenger. 
 
Brewer goes on to ask: "2. Isn't a good researcher perennially dissatisfied 
with the existing state of knowledge? That is the motive to try to improve 
it. What are these people dissatisfied about? Are they all saying the same 
thing?" 
 
I couldn't agree more.  This is one of the best reasons to collect these 
articles and analyze them; to see if they are all saying something 
similar--or not. 
 
"Is it 'not enough people are working in my field and citing my papers'?" 
 
Based on the papers of this genre that I've seen, the answer is no (not 
likely from Leontief, for example); but, again, that's what this research 
project is about. 
 
"3. Such grouses need a date and a context attached. We are historians, 
aren't we? My memory says that in the 1970s there was quite a 
widespread feeling that there was something wrong, but that it has 
declined sharply. In the 1970s people were complaining about general 
equilibrium (GE) theory, then seen as the pinnacle of the subject. Now, 
no one cares about GE theory one way or the other - the action is 
elsewhere. Is the incidence of complaining rising or falling? How does 
it compare with other fields?" 
 
I don't particularly agree with the example about GE, but again, good 
point.  The "grouses" do live in their own times.  Some of the articles 
that have been suggested to me come from well before the 1970's.  I can't 
wait to take a look at them.  I'll bet they reflect their times in 
revealing ways. 
 
Hence, Brewer's second and third points, while stated with clear hostility, 
are basically constructive and not arguments against grousing at all. 
 
Finally, Robin Foliet Neill offers this argument: 
 
"Neoclassical Economics has its limits.  As an explanation of the evolution 
of economies it fails badly.  Still, when it comes to designing policies to 
meet specifit problems, some strategic suspension of disbelief is in order. 
If we admit to the existence of a Heraclitean flux, we are doomed to 
paralysis.  To take rational action at some point we have to make a 
proposal 'as if' certain ceteris paribus condition held, 'as if' there were 
certain known principles governing human motivation. For this reason there 
are economists who bemoan the inablity of Neoclassical Economics to 
represent reality, while, at the same time, they proceed with the use of 
that theory to make policy proposals.   Brewer has a point.  One has to 
look at the nature of the criticism, not just the fact that there is 
criticism, before listing the critic among those who disparage Neoclassical 
theory." 
 
Again, I'm truly surprised by the immediate assumption that I am planning 
to "list the critic among those who disagree with Neoclassical theory."  Go 
back and read my original post, please.  I say that not as a (disingenuous) 
claim that I don't have my own ideas about this subject, but simply to 
point out how quickly some people leapt to conclusions, based on a very 
short and simple posting. 
 
Still, Neill's post includes an argument, which is Argument #3, 
Neoclassical Economics May Not Be Perfect, But We All End Up Using It In 
Practice.  I'd say that we all end up using some inelegant agglomeration of 
theories when confronted with a policy question; but why assume that we end 
up using a crude form of neoclassical theory?  By my observation, at the 
macro policy level, most people are more Keynesian than neoclassical.  But 
if I'm wrong, how is this an argument against people critiquing the current 
trends in economics? 
 
Finally, what does this argument mean in practice?  To take a fairly recent 
political controversy, how does one use seat-of-the-pants neoclassicism to 
evaluate the proposal to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction as part 
of the Flat Tax?  The National Association of Realtors (those Marxists!!) 
used the simple neoclassical notion that eliminating a tax advantage would 
raise the effective price of a good and thus depress demand and lower the 
equilibrium price.  Hall and Rabushka (the most prominent academic 
proponents of the Flat Tax) claimed that several general equilibrium 
effects would end up canceling each other out, so that the housing market 
would be unaffected.  Both used some type of neoclassical theory to defend 
policy positions.  What does that prove? 
 
This is, as ever, a fascinating discussion.  It is not surprising to see 
the old insults rolled out against the critics of the mainstream.  What is 
surprising is the immediate reaction against even a consideration of those 
criticisms. 
 
[I apologize for the length of this post.  This is not my habit.  I promise 
to limit myself to more manageable lengths in the future.] 
 
 
Respectfully, 
Neil 
 
 
Neil H. Buchanan 
Director, Center for Macroeconomic Policy 
Department of Economics 
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201 
 
 
For Fall semester, 1997: 
 
Department of Economics      ||   (914) 876-8575 home 
Barnard College              || 
3009 Broadway                ||   (212) 854-5005 office 
New York, New York 10027     ||   (212) 854-8947 fax 
 
 
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