D. Friedman:
I believe you're missing the point of the below response. No comment was made that infers the previous author is demonizing eugentics. No normative statement is made in my opinion, merely the curious fact (once again brought to the academic world's attention by David Levy and Sandra Peart) that at the origns of the study of economics lay the phrase "dismal science" coined by Carlyle in reference to the belief that economics assumed that people were basically all the same, and thus entitled to liberty.
I recognized the reference. Levy argued that part of what
Carlyle et. al. were unhappy with was the link between economics and
the abolitionist movement.
The statemnt below is in reference to the aforementioned, not a normative statement on the morality of eugenics. It serves well in response to the previous email pertaining to the question of race.
Perhaps I have missed the point?
The original statement said:
>I think it is therefore surprising to see economists abandoning their
>original analytical framework.
Which implied that Smith's belief that variations in adult
humans were almost entirely due to environment was part of the
"original analytical framework" of economics. It isn't.
Economists have been talking about people earning rents on scarce
abilities for a long time--and should, if they want to explain the
real world, in which innate diversity matters.
Especially since, historically, the
>analytical and scientific research on races was called eugenics....
This asserts one thing:
1. That analytical and scientific research on races was called
eugenics.
Which, as I pointed out, is false. Not only is it false, it is a
false position that is routinely used to try to link both modern
reproductive technology and scientific research into genetic
differences among humans to the Nazis and various other ideological
lepers.
And it implies a second thing:
2. That the (supposed) fact 1 is a reason why economists ought
not to think about genetic differences among individuals. But this is
true only if thinking about innate differences is somehow equivalent
to advocating coercive policies to control other people's
reproduction--which is what "eugenics" in contexts like
this is supposed to suggest. So I pointed out that the two are not
equivalent.
--
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
