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andrew kliman wrote: 
> 
> The discussion of "the neoclassical position" concerning self-interest 
> raises what is, for me at least, an interesting problem:  What makes a 
> position (theory, model, etc.) neoclassical? 
 
As a constantly frustrated historian trying to translate back and 
forth from the economics to the history literature to the history of 
economic thought literature to the economics literature, NOTHING 
is more frustrating to me than the term "neoclassical economics." 
 
Economists tend to (quite casually) use "neoclassical economics" 
to mean "what I do" as opposed to "what that researcher over there, 
with whom I hold substantial disagreements, does." 
 
Historians can't make heads or tails of all this, and figure that 
"neoclassical" economics must be a synonym for "mainstream economics", 
or that which is taught in Departments of Economics in the U.S. 
Which made for a lot of confusion when they concluded that since 
Milton Friedman's proscriptions for economic policy was called 
"neoclassical economics" (rather than "Keynesian economics"), 
then all economists must be devotees of Milton Friedman.  Even 
more since Friedman must be a supply-sider which must be 
Reaganomics so anything taught in a mainstream economics department 
must be Reaganomics.  (DEEP sigh here at the memory.) 
 
Here's another one:  I've asked economists what's the BARE MINIMUM 
that you have to accept to be able to work with the literature in 
economic theory?  (Answer ranges from downward sloping demand curve 
to scarcity to constrained maximization/minimization to ... go 
ahead, how would you fill in the blanks?) 
 
But if you ask historians what's the BARE MINIMUM you have to accept 
to be able to work with the literature on economic theory, they 
will inevitably answer:  "profit-maximizing behavior" or 
"rational behavior" in the sense of cold calculating purpose. 
Or even "the superiority of capitalism". 
 
How do you bridge this linguistic, conceptual failure in communication? 
 
Another thought:  I find economists are very loathe to admit that 
there are branches of economics (labor, urban, public choice) with 
their own language and their own assumptions. 
 
Is the unwillingness to broaden the language to be able to 
define different schools of "neoclassicism" due to the difficulty that 
economists have admitting to ambiguity, dissent, disagreement over 
very major issues?  Is it related to the culture that demands 
economics be a "science" -- one is either "right" or one is "wrong"? 
 
Is the economics of information mainstream?  Is it neoclassical? 
What can I tell historians?  What do I do when a Chicago economist 
tells historians that it's not "real" economics?  How about the 
literature from a while back on worker-managed firms?  If one 
economist "believes" that "real" economic theory proves that there 
was no discrimination against women in the labor market in the 
nineteenth century because he/she can show that MPL=wages, is 
there no discipline within economics as a profession that requires 
that the scholar AT LEAST include footnotes on the extensive 
literature that already exists on the subject of discrimination, 
some of which directly refutes this hypothesis?  When you say 
"it's all economics", what do you do when an economist willfully 
chooses to ignore an entire branch of the current literature? 
 
What do you do when an economist crosses into a different 
subdisciplinary area, hasn't read the literature in 25 years, 
yet, because "good economics is good economics" considers 
himself/herself perfectly qualified to be an expert? 
 
Where is the language to describe this? 
-- 
Mary M. Schweitzer , Assoc. Prof., Dept. of History 
Villanova University (on medical leave since January 1995) 
Email:  <[log in to unmask]> 
URL:  http://www2.netcom.com/~schweit2/history.html 
 
 
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