Dr. Ebeling's response has a certain elegance to it.  But it ignores what
it seems to me is the basic problem, which Giancarlo de Vito highlighted:
 that the 'free market' in economic research (like the free market in
post-"Citizens United" political funding, or like the current charter
school funding)) has a consistent bias to it, in favor of the rich
("income-earning" is such a charming euphemism).  That is, I think, the
consistent problem that advocates of the free market in the contemporary
world need desperately to obfuscate, as Dr. Ebeling does so well.
Does Dr. Ebeling think that the democratic response -- of persuading others
to act through the state to produce their preferred allocation -- is
illegitimate?  (I.e., does the ideology of the free market trump
democracy?). (Of course, this raises a bunch of questions about what is
democratic, just as Dr. Ebeling's answer raises a bunch of questions about
what constitutes a free market and how much the coercive power of the state
defines and determines that free market.)
Peter Stillman



On Tuesday, June 20, 2017, richard ebeling <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Giancarlo de Vivo seems to think that there should be some optimal
> "invisible hand" allocation of funding for "research." And he is concerned,
> clearly, that there is a "market failure" going on because the presumed
> "efficient" allocation does not occur.
>
> What  an open, free, competitive market tends to do is to direct the use
> of resources into those channels representing or reflecting the demands of
> the income-earning general consuming public. if the private buyers of the
> marketplace prefer spending their income in the form of market demands in
> other ways than supporting economists in their "research," then that tends
> to be the patterns of use taken on under entrepreneurial direction of the
> scarce means of production.
>
> This sounds more like that Dr. Vivo wants resources to be allocated in a
> way that others in society do not find desirable or valuable. So,
> ultimately, his objection is not with the "invisible hand," but that,
> reflecting consumer sovereignty, invisible hand outcomes are different than
> the one's he wants. Thus, his real objection is to the fact that many
> people do not share his values.
>
> He, then would have two possible courses of action: Attempt to persuade a
> sufficient number of his fellow citizens to share his values (and,
> therefore, preferred allocation of scarce resources) or turn to the State
> to compel his fellow citizens to fund what he wants that they do not
> through the compulsory taxation. Which of these two methods should be
> considered "progressive" versus "reactionary"?
>
> Dr. Richard Ebeling
> BB&T Professor of Ethics
> and Free Enterprise Leadership
> The Citadel
> Charleston, South Carolina
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 5:40 AM, Giancarlo de Vivo <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>> wrote:
>
>> I suggest that people who believe that the invisible hand also
>> distributes private funding for research "efficiently" and “blindly”,
>> perhaps even reaching some kind of maximum, watch “Inside Job”, an
>> extremely interesting film, made in the aftermath of the 2008 financial
>> crisis, in particular its Section IV (“Accountability”), where the problem
>> of private research funding for economic research receives some attention
>> and some of the most prominent US economists make an embarassing appearance.
>>
>> Giancarlo de Vivo
>>
>>
>>
>> > Il giorno 20/giu/2017, alle ore 00:30, R. W. Dimand <[log in to unmask]
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>> ha scritto:
>> >
>> > Which is more likely: that the people running the Laura Spellman
>> Rockefeller
>> > Fund had ever heard of Nassau Senior and demanded the reprinting of
>> > his works as a condition for funding LSE, or, alternatively, that LSE
>> economist
>> > Marian Bowley (and her father, LSE professor A. L. Bowley) were
>> interested
>> > in Nassau Senior because Nassau Senior was the subject of Marian
>> Bowley's
>> > doctoral dissertation and first book?
>> >
>> > Robert Dimand
>> > ________________________________________
>> > From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>] on behalf of Giancarlo
>> de Vivo [[log in to unmask]
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>]
>> > Sent: June 19, 2017 3:18 PM
>> > To: [log in to unmask] <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>
>> > Subject: Re: [SHOE] LSE series of reprints of scarce works on political
>> economy
>> >
>> > Of course Mason is right: who would deny that leaving most of the
>> funding for research into private hands brings results which in one way or
>> another reflect the maxim: who pays the piper calls the tune? Dear Robert
>> Dimand, this applies also to the funding for scarce reprints: have you
>> noticed that the author most reprinted in the LSE series is a vulgar
>> sycophant like Senior? Perhaps some Rockefeller money went into this?
>> >
>> > Giancarlo de Vivo
>> >
>> >
>> >> Il giorno 19/giu/2017, alle ore 18:58, Mason Gaffney <
>> [log in to unmask]
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>> ha scritto:
>> >>
>> >> Dear Rob et al.,
>> >>      Yes, I agree that any brief statement of a complex issue risks
>> >> overstating OR UNDERSTATING its point. I only want to raise
>> consciousness of
>> >> how the tentacles of well-funded octopi may direct or misdirect the
>> work of
>> >> "objective, scientific" scholars.  At age 94, I speak from long
>> experience,
>> >> some of it published.
>> >>
>> >> Mason
>> >>
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>] On
>> >> Behalf Of Rob Tye
>> >> Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2017 1:56 AM
>> >> To: [log in to unmask] <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>
>> >> Subject: Re: [SHOE] LSE series of reprints of scarce works on political
>> >> economy
>> >>
>> >> Dear Mason,
>> >>
>> >> MG >  Please consider also the possibility that the Rocks financed LSE
>> not
>> >> to promote Fabianism but to subvert it.  They were a shrewd and canny
>> lot
>> >>
>> >> I suspect you would agree that this brief statement risks
>> overemphasising
>> >> the degree of intentionally involved?  What I seem to see is more like
>> a
>> >> great deal of rather random surface activity, but with a constant
>> underlying
>> >> attitudinal drift applied to it.
>> >>
>> >> I think its worth my saying a little more - as a non-economist -
>> because it
>> >> seems to me that most published work on the long term history of
>> economics
>> >> is not and never has been done by economists - but rather by
>> historians,
>> >> anthropologists and archaeologists.  And that the Rockefeller funding
>> in the
>> >> 1920's (London from 1923, Paris from 1926 (?), New York about the same
>> time
>> >> (?)) seems to me to be crucial to an understanding how Economic
>> Departments
>> >> were bypassed, in leading the way to the somewhat centrally
>> co-ordinated
>> >> historicist errors concerning economic history of the 1960's (I am
>> thinking
>> >> especially of the enormous and regrettable influence of historians
>> Fernand
>> >> Braudel and Moses Finley).
>> >>
>> >> Just as I fail to find the history of economics being pursued within
>> >> academic Economics Departments, so too the history of this history
>> seems to
>> >> be written by others.  I was particularly impressed by the early work
>> of
>> >> Jeff Pooley ('An Accident of Memory') on the intellectual development
>> of
>> >> Edward Shils, and the rather notorious Paul Lazarsfeld - but carried
>> out
>> >> under the umbrella of Media Studies.  It seems particularly relevant
>> here,
>> >> since Shils developed his intellectual stance in connection with
>> >> philosophical matters whilst at LSE, and seems a crucial figure as the
>> baton
>> >> was passed from Rockefeller to Ford.
>> >>
>> >> If there are insightful 20th century historiological sources I have
>> >> overlooked, I would be very please to get them
>> >>
>> >> Robert Tye
>> >>
>> >> PS I use "historicism" in the broad 'Hegelian' sense, of course.
>> >>
>> >
>>
>
>

-- 
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