Guest post by Laurent Dobuzinskis

Do markets foster cooperation and individual autonomy, or are they at best amoral, and at worst immoral? Does economic theory justify selfishness? Does the state have an obligation to promote the general welfare and to correct market failures, or are such efforts counterproductive? And how do economists address these questions? Do they speak with a distinctive voice in comparison to other scholars in the social sciences or the humanities?

Although there is an obvious risk here of overgeneralizing and of ignoring important nuances, examining these questions matters because a) economists are still considered to be the most reliable experts on what makes market work “efficiently,” and b) no viable and compelling alternative to a market economy has been fully worked out yet, in spite of a torrent of critiques of “neoliberalism.” But does this mean that the status quo, with which more and more people are increasingly dissatisfied, must be maintained? If not, what can be done, in both practical terms and in terms of generating innovative ideas that would be inspiring and yet pragmatic? And how do economists, on their own, or increasingly by engaging with a broader community of scholars and practitioners, contribute to this debate?

I provide an account of these debates in my two recently published books (Moral Discourse in the History of Economic Thought and Economic Growth and Inequality: The Economists' Dilemma). This account incidentally is, I hope, fair and balanced insofar as the (philosophically) pragmatic perspective to which I adhere implies that I am skeptical of overtly dogmatic positions. But, as I explain below, I do eventually come off the proverbial fence.

If one takes a very long view of the history of economic theory—as I do in Moral Discourse in the History of Economic Thought—the prominence of these fundamental normative questions has waxed and waned in economic theory. In more recent years, after a period of triumphalism for the neoclassical critics of “government failures,” which has come to as a result of the “Great Recession” and the pandemic, there are signs that a promising intellectual renewal is under way at the crossroads of economics, social psychology, and evolutionary biology.

The contours of this emerging paradigm are still fuzzy, but the “big idea” here is the displacement of the figure of the utility-maximizing homo economicus by a less self-regarding homo reciprocans (Bowles and Gintis 2002), motivated by a search for fair reciprocity. Altruism has not replaced selfishness in these new socio-economic approaches. But self-interest is being redefined as an “enlightened” form of self-interest in which the “self” is constituted by a plurality of mutually dependent interests. Conversely, the rationality of the maximization calculus gives way to a more open-ended reasoning which factors in changing circumstances and adjusting preferences. Fair reciprocity is the key to unraveling complex socio-economic dilemmas. The perceived lack of concern for this deeply seated expectation of fairness is arguably one of the main causes of the current rise of reactionary populism. But this concept can also inform a rethinking of political economy.

In a sense, this is a rediscovery of the concept of “sympathy” which was central to Adam Smith’s works and most classical political economists, including other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as some early French ans Italian pioneers of the discipline (such as Condillac and Genovesi, respectively). This is a profound insight that draws attention to the considerable extent to which most people care about others but also what others think of them—and this includes the political economists themselves whose theories who were not indifferent toward the human subjects of their analyses. Their advocacy of free markets was unmistakable, but it was tempered by this awareness and was conducive to a reformist/perfectionist approach. John Stuart Mill exemplified the latter; classical political economy, however, was displaced by modern scientific economics at the turn of the last century. Although many neoclassical economists were individually concerned with social problems, as Alfred Marshall certainly was, their methodological commitment to economic “efficiency”—that is, reaching an optimal equilibrium—meant that if there was a tension between “efficiency” and “equity,” they tended to err on the side of efficiency. Economic agents became lifeless automata following the instructions of a maximizing algorithm.

John Maynard Keynes challenged this perspective, but his moral intuitions were diluted in the mathematical models formulated by the architects of post-war Keynesianism. In any event, Keynesianism reached a dead-end in the 1970s. For several decades thereafter until the Great Recession of 2008-2010, neoclassical models reigned largely unopposed within mainstream economics. Of course, critical counteroffensives, mostly from outside of the discipline of economics, were launched by proponents of “social justice.” But their efforts have had relatively little impact on public policy, with the possible exception of environmental regulations. The neoclassical orthodoxy suffered a serious blow as a result of the Great Recession (followed in turn by the COVID-19 pandemic), when a new methodological pluralism came into effect. But within this (relatively) pluralistic context, behavioural/experimental models occupy a central place. They bring to light the complex ways in which people make decisions about their own welfare, sometimes creatively (often being guided by notion of fair reciprocity), and sometimes in naively “irrational” ways.

This paradigmatic shift at the empirical level opens up intriguing normative perspectives. If there is no good reason for limiting one’s horizon to self-interested motivations and narrowly “rational” calculations as the only “realistic” hypothesis for modeling socio-economic problems, it follows that there is no good reason for reformers not taking advantage of this quasi-natural disposition to act cooperatively. The policy instruments I emphasize in Growth and Economic Inequality follow from a shift from traditional redistributive programs to asset-based interventions (or predistribution). Injustices are not caused merely by the unfair distribution of incomes, but more fundamentally by an unfair allocation of capital resources (i.e., wealth). Predistribution would enable individuals and households to acquire capital and/or offer them opportunities to have some say about how capital is used by those who own most of it. Some examples include: a “stake-holder” grant (a lump-sum provided to young adults to invest as they wish) or a basic income guarantee; facilitating access to home ownership; and a generalization of the German codetermination system which empowers employees of large corporation by giving them seats on the boards of these corporations. The overall outcome would be what some Italian economists (such as Luigino Bruni) call a “civil economy.”

Wrapping up this post, I would like to draw a parallel between my intellectual journey and that of theorists such as Vernon Smith (Smith and Wilson 2019) and Deidre McCloskey (2021), who see recent developments as an invitation to revisit Smithian sympathy in an effort to “humanize” economics while remaining faithful to the core tenets of classical liberalism. But in my case, I’ve gone one step further by (tentatively) siding with the Italian civil economy tradition (Bruni 2006; Bruni and Zamagni 2016; Calvo 2018) which insists, albeit perhaps a little too naively (Martino and Müller 2018), on responsibilizing decision-makers and on mobilizing civil society in the development and implementation of predistributive initiatives.

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LAURENT DOBUZINSKIS teaches political Science at Simon Fraser University (Canada). His research interests include the history of political and economic ideas, the philosophy of social science (e.g., complexity theory), and public policy. Although leaning toward classical liberalism, his works reflect a preference for “nonideal theory” as a framework for achieving a pragmatic synthesis of complementary perspectives on civil society, markets, and political institutions. He is the author of The Self-Organizing Polity: An Epistemological Analysis of Political Life (1987), Moral Discourse in the History of Economic Thought (2022), and Economic Growth and Inequality: The Economists’ Dilemma (2023), as well as of articles and book chapters on an eclectic range of issues concerning practical and theoretical developments in political economy, from the role of think tanks to a basic income guarantee to the uses of game theory.

References

Bowles, Samuel and Herbert Gintis. 2002. “Homo Reciprocans.” Nature 155 (January): 125-128.

Bruni, Luigino. 2006. Civil Happiness: Economics and Human Flourishing in Historical Perspective. London: Routledge.

Bruni, Luigino and Stefano Zamagni. 2016. Civil Economy: Another Idea of the Market. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.

Calvo, Patrick. 2018. The Cordial Economy: Ethics, Recognition and Reciprocity. Cham: Springer Nature.

Dobuzinskis, Laurent. 2022. Moral Discourse in the History of Economic Thought. London: Routledge.

Dobuzinskis, Laurent. 2023. Economic Growth and Inequality: The Economists' Dilemma. London: Routledge.

McCloskey, Deirdre N. 2021. Bettering Humanomics: A New, and Old, Approach to Economic Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Martino, Maria Guadalupe and Christian Müller. 2018. “Reciprocity in the Civil Economy: A Critical Assessment.” Journal for Markets and Ethics 6, No. 1: 63-74.

Smith, Vernon and Bart J. Wilson. 2019. Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

By Mark D. White

Apologies for the short notice, but there is a free online conference this Thursday (March 30) to discuss George DeMartino's recent book, The Tragic Science:

In his most recent book, The Tragic Science (2022), Professor George DeMartino (University of Denver) argues for a harm-centric economics. Economic policy analysis recognises that most economic interventions entail harms along with benefits. But the notion of harm that economists standardly accept is, DeMartino argues, highly restricted. This limited conception of harm blinds economists to the real damage that economic policy interventions can inflict and this ought, DeMartino suggests, to encourage us to revisit the notion of harm in economic theory and practice. Join us to appraise this important idea.

See here for the conference Zoom link and conference program.

By Mark D. White

New from the University of Chicago Press is The Tragic Science: How Economists Cause Harm (Even as They Aspire to Do Good) by George DeMartino (University of Denver), the foremost expert in the professional ethics of the economics profession. (See, for instance, his wildly successful book The Economist's Oath as well as The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics, co-edited with Deirdre McCloskey.)

From the publisher's blurb:

The practice of economics, as economists will tell you, is a powerful force for good. Economists are the guardians of the world’s economies and financial systems. The applications of economic theory can alleviate poverty, reduce disease, and promote sustainability.

While this narrative has been successfully propagated by economists, it belies a more challenging truth: economic interventions, including those economists deem successful, also cause harm. Sometimes the harm is manageable and short-lived. But just as often the harm is deep, enduring, and even irreparable. And too often the harm falls on those least able to survive it.

In The Tragic Science, George F. DeMartino says what economists have too long repressed: that economists do great harm even as they aspire to do good. Economist-induced harm, DeMartino shows, results in part from economists’ “irreparable ignorance”—from the fact that they know far less than they tend to believe they know—and from disciplinary training that treats the human tolls of economic policies and interventions as simply the costs of promoting social betterment. DeMartino details the complicated nature of economic harm, explores economists’ frequent failure to recognize it, and makes a sobering case for professional humility and for genuine respect for those who stand to be harmed by economists’ practice.

At a moment in history when the economics profession holds enormous power, DeMartino’s work demonstrates the downside of its influence and the responsibility facing those who practice the tragic science.

Mark D. White

Out now from Cambridge University Press is a new book co-edited by Matthew Adler (Duke University) and Ole Norheim (University of Bergen) titled Prioritarianism in Practice. The abstract reads:

Prioritarianism is an ethical theory that gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. In contrast, dominant policy-evaluation methodologies, such as benefit-cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and utilitarianism, ignore or downplay issues of fair distribution. Based on a research group founded by the editors, this important book is the first to show how prioritarianism can be used to assess governmental policies and evaluate societal conditions. This book uses prioritarianism as a methodology to evaluate governmental policy across a variety of policy domains: taxation, health policy, risk regulation, education, climate policy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also the first to demonstrate how prioritarianism improves on GDP as an indicator of a society's progress over time. Edited by two senior figures in the field with contributions from some of the world's leading economists, this volume bridges the gap from the theory of prioritarianism to its practical application.

The chapters are as follows:

1. "Introduction," Matthew D. Adler and Ole F. Norheim
2. "Theory of prioritarianism," Matthew D. Adler
3. "Well-being measurement," Matthew D. Adler and Koen Decancq
4. "Prioritarianism and optimal taxation," Matti Tuomala and Matthew Weinzierl
5. "Prioritarianism and measuring social progress," Koen Decancq and Eric Schokkaert
6. "Prioritarianism and health policy," Richard Cookson, Ole F. Norheim, and Ieva Skarda
7. "Prioritarianism and fatality risk regulation," James K. Hammitt and Nicolas Treich
8. "Prioritarianism and climate change," Maddalena Ferranna and Marc Fleurbaey
9. "Prioritarianism and education," Erwin Ooghe
10. "Empirical research on ethical preferences: How popular is prioritarianism?" Erik Schokkaert and Benoît Tarroux
11. "Prioritarianism and equality of opportunity," Paolo Brunori, Francisco H.G. Ferreira, and Vito Peragine
12. "Prioritarianism and the covid-19 pandemic," David E. Bloom, Maddalena Ferranna, and J. P. Sevilla.

By Mark D. White

I'm still working through Elizabeth Berman's Thinking Like an Economist, and I do hope to comment on it eventually. For the time being, though, Idrees Kahloon's review in The New Yorker will suffice (despite the hyperbolic title, which I assume was not his choice).

By Mark D. White

Coming out in June from Routledge is a new book titled The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought, edited by Agnès Grivaux and Sina Badiei:

By Mark D. White

Coming in April 2022 from Oxford University Press is Community Economies in the Global South, edited by Caroline Shenaz Hossein (University of Toronto Scarborough) and Christabell P.J. (Kerala University).

From the publisher's website:

People across the globe engage in social and solidarity economics to help themselves, their community, and society on their own terms.

Community Economies in the Global South examines how people who conscientiously organize rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) bring positive changes to their own lives as well as others. ROSCAs are a long-established and well documented practice, especially those organized by women of colour. Members make regular deposits to a fund as a savings that is then given in whole or in part to each member in turn based on group economics. This book spotlights women in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia who organize and use these associations, composed of ordinary people belonging to similar class origins who decide jointly on the rules to suit the interests of their members. The case studies show how they vary greatly across countries in the Global South, demonstrating that ROSCAs are living proof that diverse community economies do exist and have been around for a very long time. The contributors recount stories of the self-help, activism, and perseverance of racialized people in order to push for ethical, community-focused business, and to hold onto local knowledge, grounded theory, and lived experience, reducing the need to rely on external funding as people find ways to finance sustainable, debt-free business ventures. The first collection on this topic edited by two women of colour with roots in the Global South, this volume is a rallying call to other scholar-activists to study and report on how racialized people come together, pool goods, and diversify business in the Global South.

I'm a little biased toward this one: Caroline is a dear friend of mine, and she edited a magnificent book for my social economics series at Palgrave, The Black Social Economy in the Americas: Exploring Diverse Community-Based Markets. (I also hope she will contribute to this blog before long, hint hint.)

Guest post by Wilfred Dolfsma and Ioana Negru

Comes the next economic crisis, comes the next call for economics to become both more realistic and to be more ethical. While the two are related, in The Ethical Formation of Economists (Dolfsma and Negru 2019) we focus on the vexing issue of the way in which ethics and economics relate: Why is the call not answered?

Many, especially heterodox economists, blame economic theory: It does not have conceptual space for ethics. This is a call for ethics in economics (Figure 1). That, in some way, is correct, but in a strict sense it is not: Only one form of ethics is consistent with (mainstream) economics, and that is utilitarianism. The call for economics to make conceptual space for ethics is a call for (one of) the other two broad perspectives in ethics to be given a place: deontology and communitarian ethics. Most of discussions on ethics and its consequences in mainstream economics are situated within the area of welfare economics, despite the ethical implications of most economic theories endorsed by various groups of economists. There is indeed a need for more of an ethics of economics (Figure 1).

What motivates the call for (more) ethics in economics is the seemingly lack of interest among economists for the consequences of either the economic vagaries that men go through as consequences of economic crises, or even the consequences of the advice given about economic policies provided by economists. The conclusion drawn from this by many is that economics ducks its ethical responsibilities: There is an ethics of economics that is denied (by economists) (Figure 1). Yacintas (2020) argues that economists do not display sufficient attention to the fact that economic ethics is part of scientific ethics also and these principles should be part of economist’s methodology and epistemology, to inform how economists build knowledge.

Indeed, there is a small group of economists that looks at the ethical stance that economists take: distinctly utilitarian and dismissive of people’s deontological rights or the ethical norms that emerge and develop in a community. Does economic theory as taught at colleges make economists selfish (i.e., considering utilitarian arguments only), or are selfish individuals drawn into economics? Or both? (Cf. Frank et al 1993.)

What this discussion does not touch upon is what is the key contribution of this volume of contributions: How are economists actually formed, ethically? How does an ethics of economists take shape? This obviously happens in class, but also later in their careers, for instance when doing research or when informing the larger audience about findings (through media, with their own specific working [cf. McCarthy and Dolfsma 2014]).

A related question is whether economists can be trained ethically or if learning ethics can take place naturally and in an evolutionary and behavioural way, influenced by the life and career pathways economists have? This is an essential question: In our book, DeMartino (2019) argues that the postgraduate curriculum must contain modules on ethics in economics, and McCloskey (2019) states that the ethical behaviour starts early on, in the education of children and young people, that can then evolve later in their careers.  

For us, the essential issue is whether economists can be trained, at all levels (undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral), in scientific ethical principles through various modules, such as courses on ethics in economics and economic policy-making, and also scientific ethics taught in courses in research methods. This will raise the awareness of thinking ethically when suggesting economic policies and the appropriate responsibility that comes with policy advice. Re-introducing courses of ethics in economics would be a progressive step towards training and forming ethical economists.

References:

Dolfsma, W., and I. Negru, eds. (2019) The Ethical Formation of Economists. London and New York: Routledge.

DeMartino, G. (2019) "Training the Ethical Economist," in W. Dolfsma and I. Negru (eds) The Ethical Formation of Economists. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 7-23.

Frank, R.H., T. Gilovich, and D.T. Regan (1993) “Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7: 159-171.

McCarthy, K.J., and W. Dolfsma (2014) "Neutral Media? Evidence of Media Bias, and Its Economic Impact.” Review of Social Economy 72: 42-54.

McCloskey, D.N. (2019) "Conclusion: Raising Up Private Max U," in W. Dolfsma and I. Negru (eds) The Ethical Formation of Economists. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 164-183.

Yacintas, A. (2020) "Why Is Economics Not Part of a System of Scientific Ethics? A Review Essay on Wilfred Dolfsma and Ioana Negru’s The Ethical Formation of Economists." The Journal of Philosophical Economics: Reflections on Economic and Social Issues XIII(2): 202-214.

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Wilfred Dolfsma: Wageningen University, Netherlands

Ioana Negru: University Lucian Blaga of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Sibiu, Romania

By Mark D. White

Out this summer from Routledge is Moral Discourse in the History of Economic Thought by Laurent Dobuzinskis (Simon Fraser University).

From the publisher's website:

Providing an account of the development of economic thought, this book explores the extent to which economic ideas are rooted in moral values.

Adopting an approach rooted in ‘pragmatism’, the work explores key questions which have been considered by economists since the classical political economists. These include: what degree of priority ought to be granted to property rights among all individual liberties; whether uncertainties in economic life justify investing political authorities with the power to stabilize business cycles; whether it is better to trust entrepreneurial initiatives to resolve societal dilemmas or to centralize policy-making in the hands of a benevolent government. The chapters argue that economic thought has evolved from an emphasis on "sympathy" (as defined by Adam Smith) and that there has more recently been a rediscovery of the significance of sympathy reinvented as "fair reciprocity" in the wake of the emergence of behavioural economics and its connection to evolutionary psychology.

This key book is of great interest to readers in the history of ideas, political and moral philosophy, and political economy.

By Mark D. White

Available for free download until February 18, 2022, is a new Cambridge Element from Chrisoula Andreou (University of Utah) titled Commitment and Resoluteness in Rational Choice. From her introduction:

Commitment is quite commonplace and, seemingly, quite significant, since it treats certain options as “off the table.” My commitment to teaching my class this morning requires me to close off or put aside the possibility of doing some weight training instead. And my commitment to certain healthy eating practices requires me to close off or put aside the possibility of bringing a box of Twinkies as my lunch. Still, it might seem like commitment is either redundant or irrational – redundant if the option committed to is (taking into account its consequences) preferred over the alternatives, and irrational if the option committed to is dispreferred. But, as will become apparent, there are scenarios in which the ability to commit to a dispreferred alternative is necessary to reap the benefits of cooperation or self-control. This Element focuses on the interaction between cooperation, commitment, and control. Drawing from and building on the existing literature, including my own prior work in this space, I guide the reader through the interesting, challenging, and evolving philosophical terrain where issues regarding cooperation, commitment, and control intersect, adding some new contributions along the way.

Chrisoula Andreou was also my co-editor on The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination, and her chapter from that book is just one of her many important contributions to this area.