Superior Economists
Actually the paper I just read is called “The Superiority of Economists”. It’s another analysis of thee economics profession by Marion Fourcade, this time in association with Etienne Ollion and Yann Algan. It is well worth reading and fits neatly in the same analytical tradition as Fourcade’s 2009 book “Economists and Societies”.
The problem is that none of it is particularly surprising. The point being that economists, by asserting their superiority vis other social sciences have exposed themselves to greater scrutiny and criticism than their peers. This has, apparently, induced more soul-searching within economics than in those other social sciences. Along with the air of superiority that economists exude due to their self-proclaimed intellectualism, comes a big dollop of insecurity.
Which is a point worth making: economists, for all their arrogant assertion of the truths of their ‘science’, are a little insecure about something. Hence, perhaps, their brashness and lack of interaction with their peers. One of Fourcade’s findings is that economists are more isolated as a profession than those around them. They quote fewer non-economics papers and books in their own work, and are almost haughty in the disregard of insights that other social sciences take very seriously.
Which we all know.
Another point worth drawing attention to in the paper is the impact of finance and business schools. Plenty of us have discussed the emergence of the pseudo science that is modern finance, and its constant reciprocity with neoclassical economics. They are both based on absurd assumptions about human behavior, yet because of their insular character are almost immune to empirical attack. On the contrary, as Fourcade et al spell out, finance in particular has been a performative activity over the last thirty years as it attempts to bend the real world to approximate the theoretical, rather than trying to reflect or explain that real world. A torrent of so-called financial innovations are the end result of this performativity. We know how stable they all turned out to be.
Now here’s my nit-picking with the paper.
Buried right at the end, in the concluding paragraph, is this statement:
“Most modern economists have a strong practical bent. They believe in the ideal of an expert-advised democracy, in which their competence would be utilized and on display in high profile, non-elective positions in government and other institutions.”
I don’t agree. Economists don’t want an “expert led democracy” at all. They want a society led by Platonic philosopher kings, with economists being those very folk. Economists, those on the right anyway, don’t have time for democracy.
As you know, I have been on quite a kick lately [here, here, here, and here] criticizing mainstream economics as being fundamentally anti-democratic. I base this assertion on the utopian thrust in economics to describe an apolitical method of resource distribution – one in which politics, as expressed through government action, can only make things worse. As I see it the the centrality of markets in economic theorizing is an attempt to eliminate politics. And, since the emergence of democracy as our standard way of expressing politics institutionally, this implies at least a disdain for said democracy, if not an outright contempt.
Of course I realize that other economists, good for them, openly acknowledge the many flaws in real world markets. Indeed, so many such flaws have now been identified that we might reasonably ask which is the exception: the flawed market or the supposed flawless version? My money would be on the flawed one, but that’s for elsewhere.
The problem is that, as recently evidenced in Deirdre McCloskey’s critique of Piketty, hard core right of center economists just can’t let go of the flawless market version their beloved theory describes. Such flawlessness is not the result of some deep analysis, but is, in truth, the desired end point established a priori by their ideological bent. A bent that desperately needs the result of their theorizing to result in the establishment of perfection in markets and nothing but imperfection in governments.
Which is to say that such economists want to preclude the possibility that democratically elected government could possibly dabble around in the economy to good effect. This is an expression of simultaneous distrust of democracy and idolization of markets. It can be thought of no other way.
But that’s just me griping again. I appreciate Fourcade’s continued forays into the sociology of the economics profession. They help me understand the extent of the isolation the profession wallows in, and how far we have to go before the collective social sciences offer us a deep and holistic look into civil society. Unfortunately economics is holding us back at present. I wish that were not the case.
