When Evan Jones wrote >Is the economics profession/discipline monolithic or pluralist? >This question might sound self-indulgent, but it is well-intentioned. >It is a product of some recent media exchanges in Australia/New >Zealand. I enquired ... >Which media exchanges about what? To which Evan replied ... >The answer was included in the next paragraph in the original note, >to whit: >The 'quality' press in A/NZ gives much attention to economic issues >(in the general part of the paper as well as the business/finance >section), and that exposure is near-monolithically given over to >the eternal verities of the right libertarian position - >deregulate, privatise, everything that moves, 'independent' central >bank, etc. It's an ongoing process that covers but transcends >particular issues - GATT, public utilities, labour conditions, >greenhouse, etc. ANybody who disagrees is ex-communicated either as >a populist idiot or representative of a vested interest. >IN a sense, the right libertarian agenda now hogs the stage as the >great cultural unifier (or disunifier), crowding out God, Queen and >Country (though it hasn't yet dislodged 'the family', being part of a >continuing intra-right dispute). >The agenda is pushed and defended as the product of >a 'truth-possessing economics discipline, in turn rooted in a >rigorous corpus of theory. >My point is that it appears more politically productive to attack >economics per se than to claim that this stuff is the product of one >brand of economics. On the contrary, one needs to go for the jugular. >It seems to me that the libertarian right is right. They are >economics. We dissenters who hang around the edges are essentially >imposters and we do the profession a favour (and the public a >disservice) by making the profession look more tolerant than it is. >Evan Jones Maybe you could pick a particular case of a debate in A/NZ the media where ... "exposure is near-monolithically given over to the eternal varities of the right libertarian position", as you say, which might be of interest to people on Pen-L. Then we could all discuss what we think the best strategy is to deal with it, be it an attack on all economists or something more focused. Peter Robertson :-).
