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post-autistic
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home page whither heterodoxy? Robert
F. Garnett, Jr. (Texas
Christian University, USA) ©
Copyright: Robert F. Garnett, Jr. 2005 Introduction The
pluralist turn gained additional momentum in 2000 and 2001 when a series of
petitions from young economists in France, the U.K., the U.S., and Italy sparked the formation of the
international Post-Autistic Economics movement (Fullbrook
2003).3 This student-led
movement called for “a total overhaul of economics and economics teaching” to
create a more open and scientific economics, guided by a philosophically
principled pluralism: [a pluralism] that
regards the various “schools” of economics, including neoclassicalism,
as offering different windows on economic reality, each bringing into view
different subsets of economic phenomena. . . [and] rejects the idea that any
school could possess final or total solutions, but accepts all as possible
means for understanding real-life economic problems (Fullbrook
2003, 8-9). The pluralistic ethos of the PAE movement struck a resonant chord with economics students
and faculty around the world, giving rise to what Fullbrook
describes as a “peace movement” among non-mainstream economists, an historic
attempt to forge unity among dissenters who despite being “a sizable and
growing minority” have long been divided into separate schools of thought (Fullbrook 2003, 2).
Along the same line, Sheila Dow observes: The interesting new
work among young scholars is synthetic in nature, exploring the middle ground
between schools of thought and developing new ideas as a result of
cross-fertilization. . . . The future of heterodox economics lies in moving
further away from traditional groupings around schools of thought, and
engaging in much more open interchange (Dow forthcoming, 1-2).
At a deeper level, Davis and
Davidson question the strategic and intellectual value of pluralism
itself. With reference to the recent
removal of heterodox faculty from the economics Ph.D. program at the
University of Notre Dame (Donovan 2004, McCloskey 2003), Davidson contends
that the only way for non-mainstream economists to gain (or preserve)
professional standing is by developing a superior paradigm, “a single
axiomatic foundation that provides the most general theory case” (Davidson
2002). He sees pluralism as unhelpful,
if not positively dangerous, in this regard.
“Until heterodox economists unite behind a single ‘general theory,’
they are going to be losers” (Davidson 2003a). You cannot beat a rigid
orthodoxy who despise non-pure bred Aryans (heterodox economists) with a
‘let’s all share the tent guys and gals’ philosophy. As the Allies found out when dealing with Hitler,
it takes an ‘unconditional surrender’ approach and stronger [in this case,
stronger logical] forces to win what – whether you like it or not – the other
side has declared to be a war of annihilation (Davidson 2003b).
This essay offers an examination of
the historical/philosophical premises of these two approaches to heterodoxy
and an assessment of their strengths and liabilities for the future of
heterodox economics. In conclusion, I
suggest a strategy to combine the unique strengths of pluralism and paradigmism: a recasting of heterodox economics that is
attuned to the ethical, epistemological, and pedagogical priorities of the
student/faculty petitioners as well as to the professional realpolitik of Davidson et al. My main hope is to encourage further
discussion of the ends and means of heterodox economics as a learning
community dedicated to the Aristotelian/liberal ideal of a “civilized
conversation among equals” (McCloskey 2001).4
The paradigm warfare
genre of heterodox economics emerged in the mid to late 1960s (Backhouse
2000, 150-54), a period of radical absolutism in U.S. economic theory (Lee
2004; Bernstein 1999; Morgan and Rutherford 1998; Stein 1996). Mainstream microeconomic theorists had been
inspired by Debreu’s Theory of Value (1959)
to imagine that “the model of Walrasian equilibrium
was the root structure from which all further work in economics would
eventuate” (Weintraub 2002, 121). And leading neoclassical-Keynesians had
declared business cycles passé and were beginning to envision a macroeconomic
“end of history”: Most economists [now]
feel that short-run macroeconomic theory is pretty well in hand. . . . The
basic outlines of the dominant theory have not changed in years. All that is left is the trivial job of
filling in the empty boxes, and that will not take more than 50 years of
concentrated effort at maximum (Solow, cited in
Hahn and Brechling 1965, 146). Dissenting economists responded in kind. From the early 1970s through the late
1980s, many Austrian, Marxian, Sraffian, post
Keynesian, social, and institutionalist economists
sought to establish their particular mode of economic theorizing as the
“single correct alternative to neoclassical economics” (King 2002). Philosophically, these radical critics were
emboldened by the writings of Thomas Kuhn (1970). Though Kuhn never wrote a philosophy of
social science per se, his emphasis on the paradigm-bound nature of
disciplinary knowledge and his accounts of theoretical conflicts and paradigm
shifts in the natural sciences gave hope and legitimacy to non-mainstream
economists, making it possible for them to envision mainstream neoclassicism
(circa 1975) as a dominant paradigm in crisis, ripe for overthrow by an
emerging revolutionary science (Gutting 1980).5 Despite many
differences, the intellectual agendas of these “revolutionary scientists”
shared three common goals: (1) to develop a rigorous critique of mainstream
(neoclassical or neoclassical-Keynesian) economic theory; (2) to develop a
compelling alternative theory; and (3) to codify the unique premises and
methods of their alternative approach. As
one example, consider the paradigm building efforts of Austrian economists in
the 1960s and 70s. Their goal was to level
“a radical paradigmatic challenge against the core of neoclassicism” (Boettke and Prychitko 1994,
6). They believed that “the possession
of a distinct paradigm” was “necessary for a successful scientific
revolution” (ibid., 13). At the same
time, they knew that distinctiveness, while necessary, was not
sufficient. They had to “present an
alternative” (Dolan 1976, 5). To this
end, Austrian economists invested years of careful work to build a
philosophical and analytical foundation that was congenial to sufficiently
large numbers of Mises and Hayek devotees. This drive for unity led Austrian
economists to emphasize (among themselves, and occasionally in published
work) their shared normative objections to mainstream economics. At the same time, Israel Kirzner and other leading Austrians strove to bar these
value-laden statements from the formal discourse of Austrian economics. For Kirzner, a
commitment to value-free science was rhetorically and intellectually
essential, to demonstrate Austrians’ commitment to the pursuit of objective
truth and their willingness “to exercise the restraint necessary to prevent
that truth from being dismissed in the eyes of the public as mere propaganda”
(Kirzner 1976, 87).6 Similar stories can be told of institutionalist, social, post Keynesian, Sraffian, and Marxian economists in the 1970s and 80s, or of the pan-paradigmatic radicalism of Howard Sherman (Foundations of Radical Political Economy, 1987) and Malcolm Sawyer (The Challenge of Radical Political Economy, 1989), both of whom sought to merge multiple strands of radical-left economics into a single oppositional paradigm. Sherman and Sawyer’s pursuit of a unified framework was partially a response to their intellectual opponents. As Sherman explains: “Some neoclassicals have denied that radicals have a fully developed paradigm, but this book is intended to present such a radical paradigm” (Sherman 1987, 5). To this end, both Sherman and Sawyer both invoke a set of ethical and ideological commitments that all radical-left economists were presumed to share, e.g., opposition to capitalism and the conviction that “[n]eoclassical economics operates as an apologetics for capitalism and serves to provide a justification for that system” (Sawyer 29).7 They never suggested that their paradigms were (or should be) wholly “value free.” Yet they consistently claim that they are scientifically superior to neoclassical economics, both because their radical approaches offer more insight into the structure and evolution of real-world economic systems and because they are less beholden to dominant economic and political interests (Sawyer 28 and Sherman 9). The
point is that each of these projects entails more than just paradigm
building. In addition to building an intellectual
community around a shared set of values or interests, each of these groups
aspired for its approach to become the new master framework, the new “general
theory,” to which other theories would be subsumed as special cases. This is paradigmism:
paradigm building infused with the high modernist hubris of Solow, Samuelson, and Debreu. Emulating the intellectual imperialism of
their mainstream rivals (and former teachers in some cases), many
non-mainstream economists became committed to a fundamentalism of sorts. Much as new classical economists sought to
rewrite Keynesian macroeconomics from the ground up by returning to the first
principles of individual self-interest maximization and logical-mathematical
precision (Lucas 1975 and 1976; Sargent and Wallace
1975),8 many radical left- and right-wing economists in the 1970s
and 80s returned to the first principles of their dissident traditions in
search of alternatives to the mainstream orthodoxy (Kregel
1975; Eichner 1979; Dolan 1976; Steedman
1977; Desai 1979).
Recent scholarship has
illuminated the impact of the Cold War on the evolution of U.S. economic
theory and policy (Bernstein 1999; Mirowski and
Sent 2002; Fusfeld 1998; Hodgson 2002),
particularly the “transformation from pluralism to monism during and after
World War II” (Sent forthcoming).
Pluralism, according to Morgan and Rutherford (1998), was the dominant
force in economics prior to World War II.
During the Cold War years, however, this pluralism was displaced by a
modernistic monism – a “technical turn” in economic methodology and
epistemology whereby “the possibilities for pluralism persistently waned as
the language, form, and tools of economics continued to narrow . . . [and]
objectivity came to be associated with a particular set of methods
(mathematics and statistics)” (Sent
forthcoming, 6). With regard to post-1960s
heterodox economics (which emerged in response to this anti-pluralist
“technical turn”), this new scholarship raises an important question: How
might the Cold War have shaped the goals, identities, and strategies of
heterodox economists? The provocative thesis of Fullbrook (2001) and philosopher of science Steven Fuller
(2000) is that the Cold War influenced the character of post-1960s heterodox
economics quite powerfully, albeit indirectly, via its impact on the
formulation and reception of Kuhn’s landmark text, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (1962 and 1970).
Fuller urges scholars to re-read Kuhn’s text “as an exemplary document
of the Cold War era” (Fuller 2000, 5).
He details the personal and intellectual history of Structure,
particularly the role of James Bryant Conant, the
man to whom Kuhn dedicated the book. Conant was president of Harvard University from 1933 to
1953. During World War II, Conant also served as director of the National Defense Research Committee (which supervised the
construction of the first atomic bomb) and later served as chairman of the
anti-Communist Committee on the Present Danger. According to Fuller, Conant
helped Kuhn to secure his first teaching position and introduced him to the
historical study of science. Fuller
claims that “Kuhn simply took Conant’s [Cold War]
politics of science as uncontroversial – indeed, as a taken-for-granted
worldview. Structure does not
so much transcend the Cold War mentality as express it in a more abstract,
and hence more portable, form” (Fuller 2000, 6). For example, Fuller points to Kuhn’s “incommensurability
thesis” as a “Cold War worldview” (175) in which competing paradigms are cast
as (ideo)logically opposed systems of thought. Fullbrook (2001) extends Fuller’s argument by
detailing the impact of Cold War ideas and assumptions on the structure of
Kuhn’s arguments and on the pop-academic images of science (especially social
science) that emerged in the wake of Kuhn’s famous book. He cites, for instance, the analogy Kuhn
draws between scientific paradigms and rival political systems: “Like the
choice between competing political institutions, the choice between competing
paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life”
(Kuhn 1962, 94, cited in Fullbrook 2001). Kuhn’s book methodically transposes the
Cold War narrative onto the competing-theories narrative of science. This transposition extends even to his
vocabulary, with a heavy use of Cold-War buzz words and expressions like
‘subversive’, ‘polarization’, ‘crisis’ and ‘crisis provoking’, ‘techniques of
mass persuasion’, ‘allegiance’, ‘commitment’, ‘conversions’, total
‘destruction’ and ‘total victory’, and of course ‘revolution’ (Fullbrook 2001). In Fullbrook’s
estimation, heterodox economics today bears the mark of Kuhn’s Cold War
conception of science, particularly in the anti-pluralist (“paradigmist”) tendency of radical critics to erect their
own separate citadels rather than engaging in critical, pluralistic exchanges
as “real scientists” would do. “Kuhn’s
narrative makes the defense of one’s paradigm
community, through the elimination or marginalization of rival ones, the
scientist’s overriding goal.” “It is
this emotionally-charged us or them, all or nothing mentality which Kuhn’s
book seems to legitimate as the ethos of science” (Fullbrook
2001).
These arguments suggest
that, in some measure, the paradigm warfare approach of heterodox economics
is an artifact of the Cold War. To be clear, I am not arguing that the postwar schism between mainstream and radical economics
can be reduced to the Cold War, e.g., that the ascendance of the neoclassical
mainstream and marginalization of radical-left alternatives resulted from the
former’s embodiment of “capitalist ideology” or the
latter’s affiliation with official Soviet Marxism.9 My claim, echoing Fullbrook
and Fuller, is that the very bipolarity of these commonplace right/left
mappings of the intellectual landscape (e.g.,
neoclassical/individualist/capitalist/orthodox economics vs.
radical/socialist/heterodox economics) has been inspired and sustained by the
Cold War (especially via Kuhn), and that they continue to frame the
professional/intellectual outlook of most heterodox economists today. Paradigmism in
question
The radical paradigmist movement has inspired tremendous intellectual
energy, growth, excitement, and solidarity among dissenting economists, and
has made it possible for numerous individuals and schools of thought to
survive under difficult professional circumstances (Lee 2004). It has spawned an impressive array of
resources from which we all benefit today.
It certainly has made economic theory a more contested and contestable
terrain. It has brought new life to
old theoretical traditions and given birth to new ones. In so doing, it has afforded later
generations of economists the opportunity to choose among a wider range of
intellectual options than would otherwise have been available in a
professional culture dominated by the assimilationist
dogma that (to paraphrase Milton Friedman) “There is no heterodox economics –
just good economics and bad economics.”10 All of this has enabled heterodox
economists to (re)claim valuable space within academic economics by
publishing articles, teaching graduate and undergraduate students, acquiring
senior faculty positions and other positions of academic leadership,
organizing conferences, creating and sustaining scholarly journals and book
series, and so on. These virtues
notwithstanding, I am inclined to agree with Fullbrook
that the “paradigm warfare” approach has become largely anachronistic and
self-defeating for heterodox economists today, on several counts. First, it presupposes a
monolithic enemy (“neoclassical economics”) that arguably has ceased to
exist.11 As Davis notes,
“mainstream economics is no longer ‘neoclassical’ in the way that many of us
are accustomed to thinking of it” (Davis forthcoming, 6; also Colander 2000,
129-130 and Dow 2000, 159). Colander,
Holt, and Rosser go further, chastising heterodox economists for their
outmoded understanding of mainstream economics. “Much of this [heterodox] criticism today
is off the mark because mainstream economic thinking has changed. . . .
Economics is moving away from a strict adherence to the holy trinity –
rationality, selfishness, and equilibrium – to a more eclectic position of
purposeful behavior, enlightened self-interest, and
sustainability” (Colander, Holt, and Rosser 2004, 1-2). Second, radical paradigmism
encourages an obsessive concern with the uniqueness and separateness of one’s
own theoretical approach vis-à-vis others.
It fuels a bunker mentality of Us versus Them and an autarkic tendency
to see one’s own paradigm community as a self-sufficient intellectual
universe. As Malcolm Rutherford
observes in regard to AFEE (the “old institutionalist” Association for Evolutionary
Economics): [H]eterodox
groups often think that they know the truth.
This can make such groups (and particularly those groups that have
been under sustained attack and that feel themselves embattled) very inward
looking, defensive, and not very open to new ideas. A mentality of defending the true faith can
come to dominate, and, in my view this has been a serious problem in AFEE and in Marxian and post Keynesian groups (Rutherford
2000, 186). This isolationist tendency creates particular
difficulty for young heterodox economists inasmuch as it encourages them to
disengage from other traditions of thought, and perhaps from economics
itself, inasmuch as they are taught to see little point (other than
careerism) in trying to connect their ideas to the larger economic
conversation – a costly proposition, as “[e]ven for
self-confessed heterodox economists, this rugged aspect of the landscape
carries with it in many cases an unwanted and unnecessary sense of isolation”
(Potts 2000, x). Third, the Kuhnian notion of a single dominant paradigm (and the
correlative notion of a single “revolutionary” rival) encourages an
all-or-nothing view of intellectual change.
It is never enough for radical paradigmists
to oppose the prevailing orthodoxy.
They must provide a complete and superior alternative. Much as revolutionary Marxists have long
suffered under the onus of having to devise a socialist or communist utopia that
would preserve all of capitalism’s virtues but none of its problems (Gibson-Graham
1996), radical economists of all persuasions continue to bear the burden of
providing a new “general theory” that would fully supercede
neoclassicism. Besides making the
heterodox project seem unthinkably daunting and inviting feelings of resignation
and despair while we “wait for the revolution” (ibid., 256 and 259), this
point of view also fuels unduly intense rivalries over which radical paradigm
is best equipped to do battle with “the enemy,” thus inhibiting exchange and
collaboration among intellectual leaders whose creative energies might
otherwise be joined to larger ends.12 Fourth, a paradigmist approach undercuts heterodox economists’
commitments to pluralism. Every heterodox economist embraces pluralism to
some degree, as a principle of resistance against mainstream dogmatism if not
as a broader commitment to tolerance and critical conversation among
contending perspectives. But pluralism
for a radical Kuhnian can only ever be a secondary
priority, something to be honored only insofar as
it does not conflict with the first-order imperatives of scientific or
political/ideological combat.
Partly in response to the
mounting liabilities of paradigmism, the recent
trajectories of heterodox economics show a marked shift – philosophically,
analytically, organizationally, and culturally – from school-of-thought paradigmism to pluralism, i.e., to a view of knowledge in
which there is no possibility, even in principle, that “any school could
possess final or total solutions” (Fullbrook 2003,
8-9). For heterodox economists who
embrace this view of knowledge, pluralism has increasingly become a normative
commitment, a “positive valuing of a diversity of views in the minimal sense
that one who is so committed would not want to reduce the number of available
narratives or views” (Hargreaves-Heap 2001, 356).13 Heinz Kurz and Neri Salvadori, two veteran Sraffian economists, offer a revealing glimpse of this
pluralist sensibility: [T]o seek
dominance for one theory over all the others with the possible result that
all the rival theories are extinguished amounts to advocating scientific
regress. To paraphrase Voltaire: in a
subject as difficult as economics, a state of doubt may not be very
comfortable, but a state of certainty would be ridiculous (Kurz and Salvadori 2000, 237).
The most vocal champions of
this heterodox pluralism have been realists like Lawson (1997 and 2003), Dow
(1997, 2000, 2004a, 2004b, and forthcoming), Fleetwood (1999), Fullbrook (2001), and Herrmann-Pillath
(2001) who take an “open system” view of economic phenomena. These thinkers envision the object of
economic inquiry as an open-ended network of institutions and processes. Further, they believe this object to be so
complex and heterogeneous that no single idiom can adequately represent it,
and any attempt to do so will only diminish our knowledge of it. These ontological and epistemological
premises lead open-system realists to “[reject] the ideas of theoretical
monism and theoretical universalism” (Herrmann-Pillath
2001, 91) and to insist that a plurality of theories and methods is
scientifically essential. In their
view, the best way forward for non-mainstream economists would be to abandon
the paradigmist dream of a unified general theory
and instead work to cultivate a pluralist (heterodox) community of inquiry,
united by a shared commitment to open-system realism. This approach figures
prominently in the recent wave of student-led petitions seeking pluralistic
reforms in economic education and scholarship. A dominant chord in the petitioners’
demands is a realist plea for open-system alternatives to the closed-system (deductivist, formalist, rationalist, scientistic)
conceptions of social science that still permeate mainstream economics. The argument for pluralism in the French
students’ initial “Open Letter,” for example, relies heavily on an
open-system line of argument, particularly its call for “a pluralism of
approaches in economics [that is] adapted to the complexity of the objects and
to the uncertainty surrounding most of the big questions in economics
(unemployment, inequalities, the place of financial markets, the advantages
and disadvantages of free trade, globalization, economic development, etc.)”
(cited in Fullbrook 2003, 13). More generally,
non-mainstream economists are turning in growing numbers to open-system
pluralism as a foundation upon which to build the future of heterodox
economics. Lawson argues that such an
ontological reorientation – toward a conscious, systematic embrace of
open-system approaches – would help heterodoxy to become a more vibrant
scientific community, “a pluralistic forum where explicitly prosecuted
ontology and critical reflection can take their place amongst all of the
conceivable components of economics as social theorizing” (Lawson 2003,
27). He believes that the various
schools of heterodox economics “can benefit at this juncture from making
their ontological theorizing or commitments more explicit, systematic, and
sustained, from reformulating themselves explicitly as contributions to what
I am calling realist social theorizing” (Lawson 2003, xxiii). This, is his view, is the best way to
overcome the isolationist tendencies of paradigmism
and to strengthen heterodox economists’ commitments to pluralism and social
science, thus spurring the intellectual progress of heterodox economics at
large. Dow offers a parallel set of
arguments, but with special attention to the role of paradigms (schools of
thought) within a pluralistic, open-system economics (Dow 2004a, 2004b, and
forthcoming). Her argument for
pluralism stresses the key role of open-system realism in enabling as well as
constraining the play of pluralistic difference among and within paradigm
communities. Dow describes this as a
“qualified pluralism”: “a pluralism qualified by the limitations imposed by a
shared [ontological] vision,” i.e., a pluralism that promotes difference and
unity by giving individuals (or individual schools of thought) “the capacity
to follow different routes simultaneously – unified by a common goal” (Dow
2000, 166).14 On this
basis, Dow advances an open-system defense of
paradigms, seeing “each school of thought [as] itself an open system, with
vague boundaries and scope for internal and external change” (Dow
forthcoming, 10) and schools in general as integral, productive vehicles of
scientific progress. One source of the current
enthusiasm for open-system thinking is that these ideas are seen as a
powerful way to demonstrate the distinctiveness and superiority of heterodox
economics vis-à-vis orthodox economics.
Open-system realists seek to challenge mainstream economics by
challenging its closed-system presuppositions and thus holding it accountable
to the ontological and methodological criteria of a properly social
science. In this way they hope “to
ensure that the [gap] between orthodox theory and reality is recognized
widely enough to support a scientific revolution” (Dow forthcoming, 4). In addition, Dow contends that heterodox
economists possess a further, related advantage: a uniquely strong commitment
to pluralism based on their complex, open-system conception of the economy. Orthodox economists have only a limited
capacity for pluralism due to their formalist, paradigmist
commitment to closed-system modes of thought (Dow 2000 and forthcoming). Hence orthodox economists “can only
accommodate pluralism as a temporary position . . . until the parts are
unified within a single, formal whole” (Dow 2000, 163 and 161). A second cause for enthusiasm is
the potential for more effective intellectual exchange and collective action
among heterodox economists if a shared commitment to open-system realism and
pluralism can inspire members of each school-of-thought group to see
themselves as part of a larger network of overlapping and complementary
perspectives.15 In Dow’s
view, this would allow heterodox economics to become a more inclusive and
connected community, a “collection of non-orthodox schools of thought such as
post Keynesian economics, institutionalist
economics, neo-Austrian economics, behavioral
economics, social economics, feminist economics, and Marxian/radical
economics, all of which employ some kind of open-system approach” (2000, 158;
also Fullbrook 2003, 2-3). As such, heterodox economics could
potentially become an alliance broad and powerful enough to challenge the
mainstream. She and Fullbrook see signs that such a nascent unity may already
be emerging. “In numerical terms the
communities of heterodox economists are getting larger. Along with this has gone the build-up of an
institutional structure of textbooks, journals, associations, and
conferences. There is an impressive
band of young scholars pushing ideas forward” (Dow 2000, 163; also Dow
forthcoming, 1-2). [T]he time would appear to
be ripe for a challenge to the ruling paradigm: in Kuhnian
terms there would appear to be the recipe for a crisis in orthodox
economics. Just as the orthodox
refusal to address the problem of unemployment in the 1930s paved the way for
Keynes’s ideas . . . could the same be possible [for heterodox economics] in
the new millennium?” (Dow 2000, 165).16 Fullbrook also likens the current movement to the
“last great crisis in economics” in the 1930s, but describes the current
crisis as “more general and more serious” in that “economics as taught in
universities neither explains contemporary reality nor provides a framework
for the critical debate of issues in democratic societies” (Fullbrook 2003, 8). Pluralism in question
As noted in the Introduction, the pluralist turn among
heterodox economists has elicited an array of criticisms. Some of the critics are pro-pluralist,
taking advocates of pluralism to task for failing to understand the meaning
and requirements of pluralism, or for failing to practice what they
preach. Others have taken strong
positions against pluralism, seeing it as a wrong-headed strategy for promoting
the intellectual/professional interests of heterodox economists. Hence while all of these critics agree that
the current wave of heterodox enthusiasm for pluralism has “gone too far,”
their arguments are notably diverse. Esther-Mirjam Sent, for
example, endorses the pluralist aspirations of heterodox economists,
expressing the hope that “[they] are serious about their advocacy of
pluralism” (Sent 2003). She finds
their pro-pluralist rhetoric uncompelling, however,
as it frequently is accompanied by what she regards as anti-pluralist behavior. “Against
the spirit of pluralism, heterodox economists appear to be offering a rather
monist reading of the mainstream” (2003); or, “though their advocacy of
pluralism may be couched in metaphysical or epistemological terms, it is
primarily inspired by efforts to achieve professional power and dominance”
(Sent forthcoming, 20). This leads
Sent to conclude that heterodox economists either do not understand the
requirements for a philosophically consistent pluralism or are unwilling or
unable to fulfill them. She challenges heterodox economists to
practice what they preach: to pay more attention to the types of pluralism
they advocate; to avoid inadvertently “sliding into monism” (e.g., embracing
a pluralism whose rationale is only temporary, such as a temporary state of
incomplete or uncertain knowledge);17 to avoid disingenuous
invocations of pluralism (i.e., “[employing] appeals to pluralism
strategically, in an effort to achieve monism”); to confront the charge that
pluralism inevitably leads to an “anything goes” view; and to “work to ensure that the material
and social conditions for the flourishing of pluralism are met” (Sent 2003). Paul Davidson, in contrast, questions the value of pluralism itself. He firmly rejects the Fullbrook/Dow assertion that a more widespread commitment to pluralism will help non-mainstream economists to effect significant changes in “the development of their discipline as taught in major universities and economic journals” (Davidson 2004). In fact, Davidson regards this kind of pro-pluralist argument as dangerous inasmuch as it serves to reinforce the marginal status of non-mainstream ideas and practitioners within the economics profession. Encouraging pluralism in
economics without a common general theory foundation merely encourages
heterodox economists to erect a modern Tower of Babel, thereby making it
easier for mainstream economists to ignore the resulting incomprehensible
babble coming from this heterodox structure (Davidson 2004). [T]he mainstream sees
heterodox [economists] as . . . people who do not deserve to be heard in
proper academic circles because they clearly possess fundamental logical
inconsistencies in their approaches.
Until they can get their house in order, why pay any attention?
(Davidson 2002). In other words, the ongoing (and arguably
increasing) marginality of heterodox economists within academic economics
signifies not a failure of a Kuhnian paradigmism but the need to redouble our commitment to
the development of a serious, coherent alternative to mainstream theory. John Davis’s
objection to the recent pluralist turn combines key elements of Sent and
Davidson’s critiques. Like Sent, he
applauds the ideal of a more pluralistic economics. Of the recent pluralist trajectories of
mainstream and heterodox economics, Davis writes approvingly: “We appear to
have entered upon a new period of pluralism in economics, structurally
speaking perhaps not unlike the past interwar pluralism” (Davis 2002,
149). At the same time, he is wary of
the growing tendency to identify heterodox economics with pluralism,
in part because heterodox arguments for pluralism are not uniquely
heterodox. These arguments are
grounded in the same liberal arts traditions that underlie mainstream
economics. Davis thus regards
heterodox arguments for pluralism as well-intentioned and valuable but
philosophically ad hoc: Of course it is all fair
and good for [heterodox economists] to press on a non-theoretical, purely
practical basis for openness, non-discrimination, and for a “free market” in
ideas . . . These are ideals that ought to be defended across all of the
humanities and sciences . . . But this sort of program does not stem directly
from the particular content of heterodox economics. It stems from a commitment to social values
of long-standing that operate across the humanities and sciences and indeed
in society generally. Only, it seems,
were these ideals and values to become shared across heterodoxy and the
mainstream, would there then be hope for a wider pluralism in economics
(Davis forthcoming, 17). Like Davidson,
Davis is keenly aware of the mainstream propensity (and power) to reject
heterodox work as substandard and hence the likelihood that heterodox pleas
for pluralism will be ignored, particularly by a mainstream that is
increasingly characterized by a plurality of methods and approaches (Davis
forthcoming, 23; also Colander 2000 and Colander, Holt, and Rosser
2004). The fact that mainstream
economists regard themselves as increasingly open and pluralistic makes it
easier for them to dodge heterodox criticism while continuing to maintain an
“exclusionary posture towards heterodox economics” (Davis forthcoming,
21). In Davis’s words: “[U]nder such circumstances, mainstream exclusion of
heterodox economics [can] be further promoted under the protection of a newly
proclaimed openness!” (ibid., 2). Davis
therefore concludes that pluralism should not be the primary means by which
heterodox economists try to establish their identity vis-à-vis the
mainstream. A better choice, in his
view, would be to trade our “politics of pluralism” for a “politics of
ontology”: to emphasize the ontological differences between the “rationality-individualism-equilibrium”
nexus of mainstream economics and the “institutions-history-social structure”
nexus of heterodox economics. This
would allow the diverse schools of non-mainstream economics to rally around a
broad yet distinctly heterodox line of critique, viz., a critique of mainstream
economics for its inadequate picture of the world, especially their “now
arguably defunct . . . atomistic individual conception” (Davis forthcoming,
18; also Davis 2003). Thus while Davis
agrees with Sent that heterodox economists tend to be non-pluralistic in
their treatment of mainstream economic theories, he sees this not as a
failure of pluralism but as the expression of a legitimate and far-reaching
ontological critique. Recasting Pluralism And Paradigms, After The Cold War Heterodox economics as we know it
today emerged alongside a dominant neoclassicism in the high modernist, Cold
War environment of the 1960s.18
Dissenters aspired to defeat an arrogant orthodoxy at its own
game. Paul Davidson and other paradigm
warriors are still trying. Others have
moved in more pluralistic directions, seeking to build broader communities of
dissent. Yet in many cases these
pluralists are still paradigmers too, holding
tightly to an oppositional conception of heterodox economics. Their main philosophical strategy is to
formulate rules – demarcation criteria – whereby economic science is
(re)defined to include Us but not Them. For example, despite their many
differences, Davis and Davidson agree that the principal aim of
non-mainstream economics ought to be the establishment of a logical or
ontological fault line between heterodox and orthodox approaches so that
“heterodoxy . . . is differentiated and also identified as a single discourse
in terms of its . . . differences from mainstream economics” (Davis
forthcoming, 23; also Davis 1999). Even the open-system pluralisms of Dow,
Lawson, and Fullbrook retain elements of this paradigmist vision, insisting that heterodox economics
define itself as the Other of orthodox economics. This is Cold War paradigmism
in a different guise but still the same oppositional project, with the same
truncated pluralism: offering intellectual openness and respect to persons
and arguments within our own paradigm communities but not to outsiders. To define heterodox economics in this
manner is to warrant the charge that heterodox economics has no positive
identity, that it defines itself only as “against orthodox” and hence “in
terms of what it is not, rather than what it is” (Colander, Holt, and Rosser
2004, 11). This puts us in the
reactive position of “permitting the mainstream to set the agenda for
heterodox economics . . . to define its structure and content” (King
2004). It also demonstrates that our
professed commitments to pluralism are fundamentally ill-conceived,
insincere, or both. Hence the critical questions: Must
we define ourselves in this negative, oppositional way? If not, then what exactly does heterodox
economics stand for? What are
our primary intellectual goals and values?
Is heterodox economics an inherently paradigmist
enterprise whose primary purpose is (and must be) to cross swords with
mainstream economics, if not to replace the mainstream then at least to
defend the validity and usefulness of heterodox perspectives in professional
spaces where non-mainstream work is routinely dismissed as unserious and “not
economics”? Or, is it possible that we
might be better served by taking a more principled stand for pluralism, i.e.,
by committing ourselves to the expansion of intellectual freedom for all
economists and their stakeholders (including graduate and undergraduate
students)? Indeed, might not academic
economics in toto stand to gain from such a “total
overhaul of economics and economics teaching”? If so, then who better than today’s
heterodox economists, the younger and the older, to exercise leadership in
the movement toward this genuinely pluralistic, multi-perspectival
(hetero-dox) economics? Much is at stake in these
questions. They are likely to become
even more pressing over the next 10-15 years as the accumulated intellectual
and institutional capital of several generations of heterodox economists
(scholarly research programs, graduate and undergraduate curricula,
editorships, leadership positions in professional associations, as well as
the journals and associations themselves) pass into the hands of younger
economists whose ability (and willingness) to employ this capital will depend
on where and how we choose to lead heterodox economics in the interim. Serious attempts to answer these
questions must begin by recognizing the compelling points registered thus far
on all sides of this conversation. For
instance, Fullbrook and Dow are undeniably correct
to claim that the pluralist ethos among heterodox economists today is
stronger than it was 15-20 years ago, and that if interaction and
cross-fertilization among previously segregated schools of thought continues
to increase, then pluralism stands a very good chance of becoming a potent
engine of intellectual progress and collective action among non-mainstream
economists. By the same token, one
cannot help but be moved by the overarching context of Davidson and Davis’s
arguments, viz., the institutional power and arrogance of mainstream
economics and the vulnerable position of non-mainstream perspectives. These realities are glaringly evident in
the 2003 removal of heterodox faculty from the economics Ph.D. program at the
University of Notre Dame on the grounds that their scholarly work “did not
meet the minimum standards of quality” (Ancochea
2004, Donovan 2004), and by the ongoing situation in the U.K. (Lee 2005b)
where the government’s annual “research assessment exercise” is fuelling a
rapid paradigmatic homogenization of economics” (Lee 2005b, 2). Under these conditions, it may be more
necessary than ever to adopt a combative, paradigm warfare approach. The notion that heterodox economics should
aspire to become more intellectually open and inclusive (though laudable and
advantageous, to a point) may be a luxury we cannot afford at the moment
inasmuch as it entails a diminished commitment to other important
professional or intellectual goals. Space does not permit me to develop it here, but in a
subsequent essay (Garnett forthcoming) I will outline my own response to
these questions. I will propose an
approach that is consonant in many ways with the realist pluralisms described
above (particularly their efforts to reconcile the competing priorities of paradigmism and pluralism via a rethinking of science to
make pluralism an intrinsic and vital feature of “normal science” – in
contrast to Kuhnian notions of science in which
pluralism emerges only in the interstices of scientific progress, during
transitions between dominant paradigms)19 but where the case for
economic pluralism (and for paradigms) is grounded not in an open-system
ontology but in the ethics and epistemology of classical liberalism. Briefly, the approach I envision
would combine Amartya Sen’s
capabilities approach to human development (modified to focus on intellectual
capabilities) with Deirdre McCloskey’s notion of economics as a pluralistic
conversation (Sen 1999; McCloskey 1998 and 2001) to
create an egalitarian-libertarian philosophy of economic science that is
attuned to the ethical, epistemological, and pedagogical priorities of the
students and faculty petitioners as well as to the professional/scientific realpolitik of Davidson et al. Sen and McCloskey
both root their central arguments in the traditions of Adam Smith and
classical liberalism. Yet their
appropriations of the liberal tradition are quite different, particularly in
their definitions of freedom, pluralism, and the requirements for a free
society. My proposal is to join these
different notions – to exploit the tensions and complementarities between
them – in order to construct a normative framework for the ongoing assessment
and improvement of academic economics, focused on the enhancement of
intellectual freedom for all economists and their stakeholders, not least our
graduate and undergraduate students.
This capabilities-minded pluralism, inspired by
egalitarian and libertarian ideals, aims to move economics ever closer to the
Aristotelian/liberal ideal of a “civilized conversation among equals” (McCloskey
2001). It also endeavors
to address several challenges posed by critics of the recent pluralist turn,
by developing a pluralism (1) that is genuine and consistent, not partial,
temporary, or otherwise “strategic”; (2) that avoids “anything goes”
relativism; (3) that attends to the “material and social conditions for the
flourishing of pluralism”; (4) that is grounded in the traditions and
principles of heterodox economics; and (5) that serves to advance not only
heterodox economics but also the social value and intellectual vitality of
academic economics at large. This, I think, is the kind of economic pluralism
envisioned by the student petitioners: an economics animated by an
epistemologically consistent pluralism that seeks to enhance the substantive
intellectual freedoms of economics scholars, teachers, and students
alike. As the French students put it,
“[N]early everything in economics is in permanent debate. So we want the various points of view to
express themselves in the university, which is what the university should be”
(Raveaud, cited in McIntyre 2003, 14). With specific regard to teaching, Raveaud underscores the petitioners’ desire for teachers
to actively enhance students’ academic freedom by providing “the intellectual
background that would allow students to think for themselves in their
ordinary life or in their professional life” (ibid., 20).20 The Cambridge 27 state the case succinctly:
[W]e are not arguing against the
mainstream approach per se, but against the fact that its dominance is taken
for granted . . . Pluralism as a default implies that alternative economic
work is not simply tolerated, but that the material and social conditions for
its flourishing are met, to the same extent as is currently the case for
mainstream economics. This is what we mean when we refer to an “opening up”
of economics (cited in Fullbrook 2003, 36).
Acknowledgement
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