No Need to Pander to Carlyle's Racism

John Quiggin (‘commentary on Australia & World Events from a Social-Democratic Perspective’) discusses the origins of the ‘dismal science’ appellation to economics by Carlyle in his defence – indeed, celebration – of slavery:

“And while I was aware that Carlyle was (correctly) viewed by Fascists as a precursor of their ideas, and that his works were among Hitler’s favorite reading, I hadn’t derived the obvious corollary that his reputation would be revived and his work celebrated by postmodernists in the late 20th century.

Anyway, despite learning that it’s etymologically incorrect, I’m going to focus on the standard view of Malthusianism as the ‘dismal’ version of economics, and make the point that, if economists are generally hopeful about the possibility of combining economic progress with environmental sustainability, it’s in part because we have learned from our own 19th century mistakes."

Comment
While welcome for his exposure of Carlyle’s racism, John Quiggan’s decision to continue to use Carlyle’s nauseous appellation is regrettable. Even using it to describe ‘Malthusian’ economics as ‘dismal’ begs a few questions, as Sandra Peart has pointed out on her blog in reference to misinterpretations of Malthus:

“One niggling detail has to be corrected: So obvious, apparently, it was treated as a throw away line. What? Rwanda. The Rwandan genocide was said to be the fulfillment of Malthus's predictions. Really? It seems to me that Malthus argued the opposite. For Malthus, institutional arrangements matter: with secure property rights, people could foresee the consequences of their decisions and they would limit family size. So, crowding (conflict and death) would not be the result for Malthus because people would resort instead to the preventative check to limit births. David Levy and I have tried to correct this still-widespread misconception of Malthus in our columns at Econlib. Part 2 is called "Happiness, Progess, and the 'Vanity of the Philosopher'".

[http://adamsmithlives.blogs.com/thoughts/2006/03/index.html]

Would it not be better for John and others to publicise these facts rather than perpetuate the myths that have grown up around them?

Surely we can write about economics without being so defensive in deference to a racist bigot’s turn of phrase and so inept to be less than positive about economics as a science and not a journalistic cliché?

[Read John Quiggin – looks like a lively Blog - at:

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/07/30/the-dismal-science-of-freedom/#more-3108]