Like Michael, I taught (briefly) at SFU with Larry some 37 years ago,
and later, he was a guest at the retreat seminar the University of
Manitoba Economics Dept had on methodology. (We had a retreat seminar
every year on one contemporary issue or another. Jim Devine was also a
guest presenter along with a number of other heredox luminaries at
various times.) Larry was always pricking the balloon not only of
orthodoxy but also challenging those of us who were critical of
orthodoxy. Certainly someone who made you think.
Paul Phillips
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
Does anybody know anything about this guy (Boland)?
That you can download his books is pretty cool.
When I sell my house I'll be able to buy one of Perelman's books.
mbs
-----Original Message-----
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of michael
perelman
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 8:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Interesting take on the hegemony of conservatism in economics
Book Proposal
What follows is an interesting review of Mirowski's new book. Within
the review, a couple of points stand out:
"One could say that even though the economics of research matters, it is
not a "market place of ideas" as some would claim, but (I would say) a
competition for "shelf space." As is well known in the grocery store
business with the Pepsi-Coke wars, this is not really a case of perfect
competition."
"But since economics today is being taught as if it is a matter of
catechism rather than critical thinking, there is probably not much hope."
Published by EH.NET (February 2006)
Philip Mirowski, _The Effortless Economy of Science?_ Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2004. v + 463 pp. $25 (paperback), ISBN: 0-8223-3322-8.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Lawrence Boland, Department of Economics, Simon
Fraser University.
This book is a collection of sixteen essays of which six were published
in readily available journals and eight in collections. In addition to
the Introduction, there is one original essay at the beginning. All of
them will provide new evidence for Mirowski's critics, particularly
those who complain about his over-the-top style.
The common thread for the essays is that all are about heretics --
starting with Mirowski himself. Readers with first-hand familiarity with
the academic life of a heretic will easily appreciate these essays. The
sub-theme for all of the essays is a challenge for the common view that
in science there is a market place for ideas. The sub-theme is common
place in so-called Science Studies and apparently even in some
Philosophy of Science literature.
Much of this book will be familiar to readers of Mirowski's previous
books. But the focus throughout is what he calls the science-economics
nexus. In his _Machine Dreams_ that nexus concerns how modern economics
is financially promoted by outside agencies such as the U.S. Air Force
and Naval Research, etc. One could say that even though the economics of
research matters, it is not a "market place of ideas" as some would
claim, but (I would say) a competition for "shelf space." As is well
known in the grocery store business with the Pepsi-Coke wars, this is
not really a case of perfect competition. _Machine Dreams_ explains why
the competition was not market-based and to a great extent rigged. The
heretics discussed here were the ones unable to get shelf space and the
question addressed is why.
The book is divided into five parts. In Part One, after an introduction
that explains everything one needs to know about the essays, Mirowski
begins by confessing to being an aging enfant terrible. In Part Two, he
begins his critical examination of those who try to see science as a
"market place of ideas" and other attempts to characterize science by
using characterizations of society. The chief heretic to be examined is
Michael Polanyi who is of primary interest because he explicitly tried
to create an economics of science. Thomas Kuhn comes in for critical
examination for his attempt to create a sociology of science, as does
the philosopher of science Philip Kitcher who goes so far as to use
neoclassical and game theory as a basis for characterizing social
structure of science. Of particular concern is the apparent
privatization of science which seems to be rendering ordinary academic
science journals to be useless.
Part Three raises many questions concerning the naïve presumptions of
economists and social scientists about numbers and constants that they
think can be found in natural sciences. One issue raised is that too
often social scientists think that measurements involve a natural
process when in fact even in physics the constants needed to establish
measurements depend on the stability other alleged constants and thus
can often be open to question. Part Four takes this into the common
quantitative territory of econometrics. In particular, Mirowski takes on
the proponents of Cliometrics and the naïve presumptions of proponents
of rational expectations, as well as others who equate neoclassical
rationality with economic success. He provides evidence of a convincing
counter-example to such presumptions. The more general questions involve
when economists adopt the latest mathematical fad to model neoclassical
economics without thinking things through. This discussion involves
another heretic, Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician who understood the
limits of mathematical model building.
Part Five strikes at the heart of neoclassical economics, the so-called
Laws of Supply and Demand. The chief heretic here is William Thomas
Thornton who was a friend of John Stuart Mill and yet was critical of
the Laws of Supply and Demand and in particular the basic notion of such
a thing as a demand or supply curve that is taken for granted in
textbooks today. Armed with Thornton's perspective, Mirowski turns to
the obvious culprit, Alfred Marshall, whose presentation of demand and
supply curves is the fountainhead of almost every neoclassical textbook.
This part closes out with a consideration of historiographical questions
that might be asked by a wise historian of science. The heretic here is
Henry Ludwell Moore, who Mirowski argues began an empirical approach to
economics that was intended to be a critique of Marshallian demand and
supply analysis contrary to conventional wisdom. And in the last and
most difficult chapter, the challenge for historians of economic thought
is how they go about reconciling ordinary demand and supply analysis or
market exchange analysis as a view of science with an alternate view
that might see sciences as a "gift economy".
An obvious audience for this book is all of the aspiring heretics out
there who will find Chapter 1 to be particularly interesting. Obviously,
it is a book that should be read by all true-believers in neoclassical
economics. But since economics today is being taught as if it is a
matter of catechism rather than critical thinking, there is probably not
much hope. Surely, historians of thought can find a lot here to cause
them to reconsider some sacred cows.
Lawrence Boland's recent publications include _Foundations of Economic
Methodology: A Popperian Perspective_, free PDF copies of his previous
five books and many other publications can be found at www.sfu.ca/~boland.
Copyright (c) 2006 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator ([EMAIL PROTECTED]; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published
by EH.Net (February 2006). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
--
---
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
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