-Caveat Lector-
Subject:
REACHING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH
Date:
Mon, 16 Jul 2001 09:12:31 -0400
From:
"Nurev Ind." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization:
Nurev Independent Research
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From:
"Jay Hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To:
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Snips from REACHING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH, by Robert H. Nelson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822630249
Donald N. McCloskey writing in the Forward:
[ pp. xii-xiv ] The sole moral judgment an economist is supposed to be able
to
make is a wholly
uncontroversial one: if every person is made better off by some change, the
change (which is then
called �Pareto optimal�) should take place. Even philosophers like John
Rawls
have adopted the
notion of Pareto optimality, trying in the economist�s manner to pull a
decently
detailed moral theory
out of a hat. Welfare economics has shown some stirrings of complexity in
moral
life, as in the works
of the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen and a few others. But most
economists continue
working the magician�s hat. The hat does not contain a living theory of
moral
sentiments; mainly this
welfare economics is Victorian utilitarianism stuffed and mounted and
fitted
with marble eyes.
Nelson�s book insists on giving the stuffed parrot back to the pet store.
Nelson
is what is known in
the trade as a �policy analyst.� Though trained in economics, he uses the
economics for practicalities.
He therefore knows a dead bird when he sees one. Though trained technically
like
the rest of us, he
is not concerned primarily with matters of pure theory, that is, what can
be
drawn out of the hat if
you assume you have one filled with birds.
Economics and theology are opposites, right? Wrong, says Nelson, leaning
against
the European
presumption since Goethe and Coleridge. Economics and theology look to
modern
eyes like strange
partners. Nelson makes it work, showing in detail that theology has always
had
its economic double.
Like Thorstein Veblen long ago he takes seriously a favorite turn of the
newspaper columnist, that
economics is mere religion. Voodoo economics. He takes it seriously by
going
further, knocking the
�mere� out from the front end of the expression. Religion, he notes, is not
mere. It is what we make
of life. Economics, according to Nelson, is the religion of the ordinary.
Nelson detects two traditions in religion, which he calls the Roman (in
both the
ancient and the
Catholic sense) and the Protestant (in both the Calvinist and the
rebellious
sense). The issue between
them has always been the perfectibility of humankind. Moderation, prudence,
courage, and justice,
the four natural virtues, are especially admired by Romans. By their works
ye
shall know them. On
the other hand the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are
especially Prot�estant.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. On Sunday
even
Catholic
Americans partake of this Protestant spirit. But the rest of the week,
surprisingly, we Americans are
Roman citizens. As Nelson puts it, �Of all nations, the United States
exhibits a
characteristic national
outlook that matches most closely the Roman tradition. Americans typically
believe that reason
guides the world, showing a deep faith in progress.� An American soldier in
the
Gulf, when asked
whether he hated the Iraqi enemy, said, �No, of course not. I reckon I�m
here to
do a job and so is
he.� A centurion standing uneasily between Jesus and the Pharisees could
not
have better ex�pressed
the attitude of Rome.
Rome under the Republic had a civic religion, consisting of the reading of
entrails and other sensible
precautions. The civic religion of the modern world is social engineering,
which
depends on similar
techniques of divination. The religion promises material salvation,
restoring
the Garden of Eden and
yielding, as Nelson points out, a spiritual salvation. For better or worse,
economics is the theology of
the modern religion.
Though Nelson does not hold much with social engineering, he by no means
disdains religions,
spiritual or secular. Religion is not some�thing that can be dispensed
with.
Nelson does not believe
that religion is past. The popular notion is that modernization has
overthrown
religion. The notion is
mistaken, though secular intellectuals from Voltaire to the average reader
of
the New York Times
have believed it fervently. �Modernization theory� is among the less
substantial
achievements of the
social sciences, claiming on no good grounds that medieval peasants were
very
different from you
and me. We need religion just as much as our ancestors did. The most modern
of
nations -- I mean
America -- is among the most religious, draping the exercise of national
power
in religious
symbolism, going to worship on the Lord�s day in numbers that would appall
the
average
Frenchman. We moderns continue to need a religion of the Judeo-Christian
sort,
with its progress
and its salvation. �The twentieth century has seen a revival of the wars of
religion,� says Nelson. Yes,
and we fight under the banners of economic theologians.
Nelson believes that our civic religion needs renewal, and finds the
renewal in
a combination of left
and right, the environmentalists and the libertarians. Both are suspicious
of
the established church.
Nelson recommends a Protestant variety of churches in our secular
religions. The
variety would give
people a free choice of economic regime. Unfashionably, he preaches
�tolerance
of diverse
economic theolo�gies.�
[ p. xvi ] I do not know how much economics the average student of religion
knows. Judging from
the recent Bishops� Letter, not much. But I am sure that economists know
nothing
about theology.
They need an education -- and have the characteristic flaw of the ignorant,
which is to deny that
becoming educated is worth the effort. After Nelson, no excuses. The
theologian
who thinks that a
dimly remembered Marxism is all he needs to know of economics, or the
economist
who thinks that
religion is merely what�s left over when science has done its job, no
longer has
an excuse. Read
Nelson, and repent.
Robert H. Nelson writing in the Preface:
[ p. xix-xx ] Some years ago, I began writing about the advisory role of
economists in government. I
concluded, as a number of others have, that econo�mists do not do in
practice
what they preach.
Economists are not neutral technicians who provide a tool for implementing
values and basic beliefs
supplied by others. They do not keep themselves separate from politics,
confining their efforts to
matters that can pass a strict scientific test. To observe these rules
would be
extremely confining,
precluding economic inputs in many areas where economists actively and
routinely
participate in
current social debate.
Instead, as many others also have, I concluded that economists are actually
strong advocates for a
particular way of thinking about the world. Without some lens or filter,
the
events of the world would
seem mere chaos and confusion. Economics provides a way of ordering,
interpreting, and giving
meaning to events. Moreover, economists do not offer their perspective from
a
disinterested and
passive stance. Rather, many of the most accomplished are firmly convinced
and
seek to persuade
the rest of the world that the economic way of thinking is the best way.
Economists over the past 30
years have in fact had considerable success in this regard, introducing the
use
of economic analysis
into many new areas of government such as national defense, education,
health,
and the environment.
As economists have made contributions in areas such as these, they have
often
been surprised by a
critical reception. Many of the fiercest policy debates have concerned
matters
not of economic detail
-- where disagreements had been expected -- but of the basic acceptability
of
the economic view of
the world. The influence of economics has been opposed by proponents of
other
outlooks who
resist the invasion of the market, of efficiency, and of economic tests
into
particular areas of social
concern. These opponents find that the way of thinking of economists
violates
beliefs that are dear to
them.
This resistance raises a practical question for an economist: How might it
be
said that the economic
understanding of the world is actually better than some other
understanding? The
old orthodox
answer of the economics profession would be to deny the validity of the
question, asserting that
economics makes no such claims and limits itself to technical and value
free
matters. However, if this
answer is rejected as both inaccurate in practice and flawed in principle
(as I
am far from alone in
doing), the matter must be pursued further. A second answer might be that
economics is a true
science and that the scientific method -- if perhaps reflecting certain
values
-- has already amply
proved its merits. Yet, aside from the question of whether science is
value-free
or not, the scientific
accomplishments of econom�ics to date must be rated as modest -- certainly
a
disappointment in
comparison to the expectations of the past. There is today not only
widespread
public skepticism
concerning the scientific claims of eco�nomics, but many doubters among
economists as well.
Yet, if the scientific claims of economics are in question, why should
society
today regard with favor
the strong conviction of many econo�mists that they have a better way of
thinking about and
understanding the world? If economics is not so much a matter of providing
practical answers to
well-defined problems, and instead seeks to provide the very framework for
social thought, why
should society pay close attention -- as it often does -- to the advice of
economists? From where or
what does economics derive its legitimacy in social policy debate? These
questions formed the
starting point for this book.
[p. xxi-xxii ] Econom�ics has been said by many observers to exhibit
�scholastic� tenden�cies;
economists are said to be a contemporary �priesthood�; and the assumptions
of
economics are said
to be beyond refutation and more in the nature of a �divine revelation.�
Regarding one heated policy
dispute, a recent commentator asserted that �the best analogy I can suggest
is
to the clash between
the established Catholic church and the Protestant dissidents in
Reformation
Europe� Still, while use
of such religious metaphors is commonplace in describing the contemporary
economics profession, it
is rare to find the suggestion that economics literally offers a theology.
To
the contrary, economics is
generally regarded as dealing with the mundane and the ordinary, rather
than the
spiritual and
transcendent parts of life. Economics is -- most cur�rent economists would
say
-- merely the study
of what works and what does not work in organizing society efficiently and
in
achieving various
output and other practical goals that society might set. An economic
theology in
a literal sense might
therefore seem implausible.
Yet, the possibility of an economic theology cannot be dismissed so easily.
Even
if economists do in
fact devote most of their efforts to practical problems of economic
organization, the possible
existence of an economic theology is a matter of the theological
significance of
these efforts. If
economic success is widely seen as playing an impor�tant moral and
inspirational
role in the affairs of
man, then economic advice may become a form of theological prescription.
There
may be powerful
faiths that are contained in the preachings of modern econo�mists, even
though
these faiths may
mostly be left implicit, and even though many economists may not be aware
of
them.
Indeed, as this book will explore, the history of the modem age (dating
from the
Enlightenment)
reveals a widely held belief that economic progress will solve not only
practical but also spiritual
problems of mankind. Material scarcity and the resulting competition for
limited
resources have been
widely seen as the fundamental cause of human misbehavior -- the real
source of
human sinfulness.
For holders of this conviction, to solve the economic problem would be,
therefore, to solve in large
part the problem of evil. Karl Marx was only one of many social thinkers of
the
modem age to
preach that, when the problems of food, shelter, and other physical
requirements
of life are solved,
humanity will then finally be free to realize its full emotional and
natural
potential. In short, for many
faithful of modern economic theologies, economic progress has represented
the
route of salvation to
a new heaven on earth, the means of banishing evil from the affairs of
mankind.
As guides to show the way along this route, economists then became
logically the
priesthood best
suited to lead their fellow men and women. The answer given to questions
concerning the legitimacy
of the economic way of thinking has been the following: Since economists
have
been widely seen as
the possessors of the knowledge to gain a heavenly future, for the faithful
of
this conviction
economists have been the proper heir to the legitimacy of earlier
priesthoods.
Indeed, this book will
argue that the prominence of economists in society today and the leading
advisory role awarded to
economists in government still depend on a widespread faith in the
transforming
powers of economic
progress. Large numbers of average Americans continue to believe that
economic
growth offers an
answer not only to the material but also to the much deeper needs of
mankind.
To be sure, contemporary economists may to some extent be living off the
borrowed capital to be
found in the preachings of earlier social thinkers. Many economists, like
many
other American
intellectuals, are no longer prepared to defend the redeeming consequences
of
economic progress, at
least with any great enthusiasm. Instead, there are numerous signs that the
environmental movement
and an emerging environmental theology will in the future offer a powerful
challenge to modern
economic theology. Instead of a path of economic abun�dance, many people
today
are renouncing
the products of modern science and economic organization and looking to the
natural world as the
valid source of renewal.
[ p. xxiii-xxiv ] The inquiry will reveal what at least for many economists
may
come as a distinct
surprise. Economic theology is less novel in its tenets than most modern
economists (including myself
not so long ago) have supposed. The outward form of economic theology is,
to be
sure, a sharp
departure from Judaic, Christian, and other theologies that preceded the
modern
age. But a deeper
examination reveals that the underlying contents of modern economic
theology
closely follow in the
line of main theological traditions of the West.
These traditions originate in Judaic and Greek sources, which thus
represent the
real beginnings of
modern economic theology. In the modem era, just as earlier faiths offered
a
number of competing
paths of salvation, modem economic theologies have offered many compet�ing
routes of economic
progress and hence of an earthly salvation. Indeed, in a number of areas
the
disagreements among
modem eco�nomic theologies will be shown to reflect with remarkable
fidelity
specific points of
theological disagreement that were fought out earlier among Judeo-Christian
theologians.
[pp. 197-201 ] Thurman Arnold�s assessment of the economics of his day was
similar. Contending
schools of economic thought were engaged in �theological dispute,� he
wrote. The
role of
economists was in large part ceremo�nial, being called on to dispense
�priestly
incense.� Economists
�regretted man�s tendency to follow false economic reasoning, just as the
preachers regretted man�s
tendency to sin.� The only answer was �constant preaching, which had the
weakness of all preaching
through�out the centuries, in that sin and heresy were always rising
against
it.� For economists, the
greatest source of sin and of evil influences was the iniquitous domain of
�politics.�
Economists believed that, if mankind would only heed their mes�sage, men
would
find the path to the
�laissez faire heaven.� Economic progress to a heavenly future had replaced
the
�Heaven in the
Middle Ages,� leaving all else to be regarded �as temporary, shifting and
ephemeral.� Like all
priesthoods, economists were more concerned with future salvation than with
the
conditions of the
moment. Thus, as Arnold wrote, �the quaint moral conceptions of legal and
economic learning by
which the needs of the moment could be argued out of existence were
expressed by
�long run�
arguments." The meaning of the long run, in short, was the path along
which the
way to heaven was
to be found.
When it came to the practical problems of managing society in the New Deal
years, however,
Arnold considered that the teachings of economists were virtually
�useless.�
Modern U.S. industry
had be�come so large and concentrated that it found its true antecedents in
the
Middle Ages, now
compromising a system of �industrial feudal�ism.� Society was in genuine
need of
�a set of
observations about the techniques of human organization.� By the 1930s,
Arnold
found that �men
are beginning to realize their complete interdependence.� What was needed
was �a
science of the
diagnosis of maladjusted organiza�tions in an age where organizations have
replaced individuals as
units.� Instead, what economists were offering was a set of writings that
were
�no more descriptive
of social organization today than the theology of the monarchy was
descriptive
before the French
Revolu�tion.�
Yet while competition was not the real driving force, the modern business
corporation was an
�extraordinary, efficient machine� that had vastly increased the standard
of
living of the American
people. American business with its �natural organizing ability� had
developed a
�productive plant
which was the marvel of the modern world.� As Veblen had argued that real
control had passed to
those who possessed the critical knowledge, Arnold now similarly found that
the
successes of U.S.
industry were attributable to �the rise of a class of engineers, salesmen,
minor
executives.... Current
mythology puts them in the role of servants, not rulers.� But the truth is
that
�it is this great class of
employees, working for salaries, which distributes the goods of the world.�
American industry was
large because �specialized techniques made bigness essential to producing
goods
in large enough
quantities and at a price low enough.� American business thrived in �the
most
highly organized and
specialized society the world has ever known� by mastering the techniques
of
organization, based on
expert knowl�edge.
Arnold also followed Veblen in arguing that in twentieth-century America
the
distinctions between
government and business had be�come artificial. Large business and large
government required the
same organizational methods, the same fields of expertise, and the same
skilled
personnel. Society
was a large and complex system that required scientific planning throughout
its
parts. Moreover, the
use of social resources by a business consumed the resources just as
com�pletely
as the equivalent
amount of use by a government agency. Pressing the logic of this view to
its
ultimate conclusion,
Arnold argued that business use of the resources of society amounted to
another
form of �taxation�
-- on a par with government taxation. Arnold�s was in essence a socialist
vision, regarding all the
basic instruments of pro�duction as part of the common property of society.
To be sure, in American business �any expenditures, however fantastic,� and
however profligate in
the use of limited social resources available to meet national needs, were
not
commonly regarded by
Americans as a drain on society. But who could deny that �the great
industrial
organizations
collected the money which they spent from the same public from which the
government collected�?
In point of fact, Arnold now argued, the different public attitudes with
respect
to government
spending and industrial spending were merely an �emo�tional reaction� that
could
not be justified �by
any rational process of argument.� It was another artifact of the �folklore
of
capitalism� ��not a
matter for economic analysis, but suitable for an anthropological form of
inquiry.
Yet there was a great irony because the �pure fiction� maintained in the
United
States that large
business was private was in fact essential to the success of the little
recognized and de facto form of
socialism that was practiced in the United States. The fiction of
privateness
gave business the great
advantage that it was free to make full use of expert skills and thus to
pursue
its goals efficiently. By
contrast, interest-group pressures, ideological demands, and other
irrational
elements of American
political culture frequently immobilized American govern�ment, holding it
far
short of its productive
potential. Arnold thus wrote that the United States had �developed two
coordinate governing
classes: the one, called �business,� building cities, manufacturing and
distributing goods, and holding
complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other,
called
�government,�
concerned with the preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so
caught
in a mass of theory
that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means
of a
sub rosa political
machine.� Government was confronted by �a desperate spiritual need to
impose
impossible
standards.� On the other hand, American mythology gave business -- in truth
a
public enterprise,
even though regarded as private -- a freedom from such burdens, allowing it
to
achieve with great
success the productive aims of the nation.
The members of the American economics profession, as Arnold contended,
performed
a vital
practical role in maintaining this unique system of corporate socialism
American
style. It was their
role to prevent the American public from achieving a correct understanding
of
the actual workings of
the American economic system. Economists instead were assigned the task to
dispense priestly
blessings that would allow business to operate independent of damaging
political
manipula�tion. They
accomplished this task by means of their message of �laissez faire
religion,
based on a conception of
a society composed of competing individuals.� However false as a
description of
the actual U.S.
economy, this vision in the mind of the American public was in practice
�transferred automatically to
industrial organizations with nation-wide power and dictatorial forms of
government.� Even though
the arguments of economists were misleading and largely fictional, the
practical
-- and beneficial --
result of their deception was to throw a �mantle of protection � over
corporate
government� from
various forms of outside interference. Admittedly, as the economic
�symbol�ism
got farther and
farther from reality, it required more and more ceremony to keep it up.�
But as
long as this
arrangement worked and there could be maintained �the little pictures in
the
back of the head of the
ordinary man,� the effect was salutary -- �the great [corporate]
organization
was secure in its
freedom and independence. � It was this very freedom and independence of
business professionals
to pursue the correct scientific answer -- the efficient answer -- on which
the
economic progress of
the United States depended.
The progressives had earlier made the famous argument that there should be
a
strict dichotomy in
government between politics and administration. Arnold was now arguing, in
effect, that this
progressive scheme had already been substantially realized in American
society.
However, it had
been realized under false pretenses and in a deeply misleading way.
Contrary to
public belief,
American business was in truth part of government. It was here that the
scientific, expert, and
efficient side of American government -- the part of government di�vorced
from
politics -- was
actually to be found. If the United States had already adopted socialism
without
saying so, the
business world was the vanguard of the de facto American system of
corporate
socialism.
If American socialism was in fact corporate socialism, it was in the world
of
U.S. business that the
religion of humanity of Saint-Simon, the social gospel of Ely, and the
Soviet of
Technicians of Veblen
were being realized. If the salvation of mankind was to be achieved on
earth,
following along a path
of expanding productivity and growth of eco�nomic output, it was the
managers
and professional
experts of the American corporate world who were leading the way to heaven
on
earth. Arnold�s
mission was to enable the formal and thus far ineffec�tive institutions of
American government to
make their proper contri�bution to economic progress as well. The official
agencies of govern�ment
should be allowed to operate like businesses, thereby further expanding the
realm of scientific
management in American life.
==============================
"Economists have become a plague as dangerous as rabbits,
prickly pear or cane toads.
Economists have become the cultural cane toads of Canberra,
oozing over the landscape and endangering myriad indigenous
species. Not only the economy but also mental health would be
greatly improved if we could lift the fog of obfuscation on
things economic. The first step is to take economists from
their pedestal and to see them as the curiosities they are.
The first step to reducing their power is to reduce their
legitimacy. How is this to be achieved? First, economists'
outpourings should, as a matter of principle, be met with
laughter, derision, benign paternalism.
They should cease to be employed as media commentators.
In the long term they should cease to be hired. Let them be
pensioned off and die out. Extinction is a worthy end for
a profession whose brief is rotten to the core."
- Dr. Evan Jones, Economics Department, University of Sydney
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