40th Anniversary Conference of the History of Economic Thought (HET) Part III

Donald Winch, author, inter alia, of 'Adam Smith’s Politics: an essay in historiographic revision’, 1978, Cambridge University Press, and ‘Riches and Poverty: an intellectual history of political economy in Britain, 1750-1834’, 1996, Cambridge University Press, outlined his thoughts of ‘The Old Generation of Economists and the New’ for his new book of essays, Wealth and Life: essays on the intellectual history of political economy in Britain, 1848-1914.

In his talk Donald Winch explained why there may be differences between the intellectual historian’s perspective and the hisorian of economic theory or doctrine. The intellectual historian gets ‘close’ to the people in his historical account and which may be different from the historian of doctrine, whose references to the people who authored the changes in doctrine may be en passant than found in contextual studies.

I have a lot of sympathy for his approach, knowing how common it is for theorists of doctrine to ignore Adam Smith’s context as if they think he had, for instance, the happy coincidence of living in an open, secular and tolerant society.

Professor Tony Brewer, University of Bristol, took over the chair, for Professor Mark Blaug’s keynote address, which did not stir up the opposition I had expected, but then I did not know the economics of most of the participants, and I was relieved to find out that there were no vocal ‘Sraffians’ among the audience (the obscurity of the Sraffian economics monologue defies summary and any explanation for why it excites, or once excited, the in-group enthusiasm of a small cell in Cambridge).

Mark Blaug’s paper was on ‘The Trade-off Between Rigor and Relevance: Straffian economics as a case in point’, and what a demolition job it was too, summed up neatly in the title.

For Session 4, Professor Sheila Dow, University of Stirling, took the chair and introduced Professor Amos Witzum, London Metropolitan University, for his paper, ‘Positive Ethics and the Science of Economics: Robbins enduring fallacy’. I last heard Amos at HES 2007 at GMU, and he is, in my opinion, one of the best lecturer-presenters, on the circuit. He also is a neat theorist and worth listening to for his enthusiasm around ideas.

He was followed by John Maloney, another forceful presenter, on ‘Straightening the Phillips Curve, 1968-76’. The title was intriguing and is was an account of government policy around the alleged trade-off between unemployment and inflation, both within the debate between Friedman and Keynesian macro-policy, as discussed at the highest level within the relevant government departments.

I was fascinated by the details from departmental minutes and interviews with senior civil servants, conducted by Professor John Maloney, Exeter University. At the time, 1970-2, I was researching productivity bargaining and incomes policies at Shell Oil, attending negotiations between trade union shop stewards and management, and I saw the realities of the micro-application on the ground of the macro-‘certainties’ discussed at the top.

To think that all those endless hours of preparatory discussions by the parties, their bargaining exchanges, long ‘clichéd’ speeches and fraught mutual 'threats' of doom, were driven by a set of macro-equations of which the participants were in ignorance and from which they acted oblivious to their alleged concerns of the trade-offs they never mentioned, was a trifle humbling.

It was clear in retrospect that the people on the ground were in the dark about the thoughts of the people at the top. It is now clear to me that the people at the top, as represented by John Maloney, were also in the dark about how people in the field actually think and behave (of course, they don’t appear in the macro-equations).

40th Anniversary Conference of the History of Economic Thought (HET)

Following my paper, Professor Glen Hueckel, Pomona College, California, showed the almost depressing complexity that Malthus delivered trying to rescue a labour command theory of value from its many in-built contradictions in his correspondence with David Ricardo. Not that Ricardo added much clarity to the subject.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with three papers, chaired by Professor Vivienne Brown (Open University, UK).

The first was by Professor Yasunori Fukagia, Yokohama University, on political economy of land tenure in Ireland under the direct influences of the British government and the exploitative, often absent, landlordism that it engendered. Professor Renee Prendergast, Queens University, Belfast, offered a comment which included the point that the United Irishmen were not solely of Catholic affiliations; Wolf Tone, for example, a leading figure in the movement was a Protestant; it was what it called itself, ‘United Irishmen’ against ‘English’ rule. The religious divisions between ‘Protestant’ England and ‘Catholic’ Ireland came later.

I was reminded of the presentation of Sandra Peart and David Levy of the role of cartoons in political economy at HES in 2007 that showed disgusting and explicit racial biases in the mainstream 19th century press. The Irish disturbances brought out the worst in stereotypical caricatures from political opponents.

Professor Stephen Meardon, Bowdoin College, New Brunswick, Canada, gave an interesting presentation on Anglo-US rivalry in trade with the rest of the Americas in the 19th century, particularly in attempts at competing bilateral, ‘most favoured nation’ treaties. His account was compelling in its lucidity. [He had also offered some criticsm of my paper on the invisible hand.]

I couldn’t help thinking about Adam Smith’s admonition in the last paragraph of Wealth Of Nations for Britain to ‘accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances’ (WN V.iii.92: p 947).

Having ‘lost’ the British colonies in North America but not taking the opportunity to avoid internaitonal entanglements, Britain’s strategic error was compounded by its second ‘empire’ across the globe up the mid-20th century, because it involved the ‘expence of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishments in time of peace’, and eventually local wars all over the world, plus two world wars, that ignored the ‘mediocrity of its circumstances’. Since the end of the second empire in the 1960s, Britain invested in the political, diplomatic, and military junior ‘police’ roles that its politicians bask in, as if there is now a third 'empire', to the detriment of the opulence its peoples should enjoy as the world’s fourth richest economy.

John Aldrich, University of Southampton, outlined his paper on ‘Probability. Statistics & Political Economy in Mill’s Logic’. It delivered things I did not know about Mill.

Next day, Sir Alan Peacock, an eminent economist with a distinguished career and a ‘classical economist’ of note, was in the chair.

Professor David Collard (University of Bath) developed a theme of general interest to me, ‘Alfred Russel Wallace among the Economists’. Wallace shared the introduction of natural selection to science with Charles Darwin.

The paper was an insight into the intellectual life of that slice of society in the 19th century, especially as Wallace outlived Darwin and had a ‘colourful’ scientific career. Wallace had finally worked out how natural selection worked, after years of field study, while incapacitated with a bout of malaria, and went on to ‘dabble’ in the para-normal and other mildly controversial fads.

[To be continued]

40th Anniversary of History of Economic Thought Annual Conference, Edinburgh 3-5 September (Part 1)

The differences between History of Economic Thought and the usual academic conferences in themselves are quite small, but looking back in the aggregate they are fairly significant.

The number of papers accepted for presentation is restricted to 15 and there are no pre-selected ‘discussants’ that open the ‘debate’ on a paper, squeezing the time for audience participation.

All participants are free to comment within the 50 minute time available. The restricted number of papers does not require parallel sessions so every paper is presented to the whole conference. The time available for each paper – an opening 20 minute presentation by the author, strictly monitored by the session chairman – is increased, allowing more comments and questions from the floor.

The audience (about 40) is formidable for ‘new’ attendees like myself. There were so many ‘big names’ in the audience that knowing only throught their published work, and not personally, created certain tensions; knowing that these ‘faces’ knew more because they have studied Adam Smith for longer than I have, and have 'battle honours' from such themes as might touch upon, made me cautious. Meeting with several of them afterwards, I found them imbued with that quality I have noitced among senior scholars - a self-deprecating modesty and personal reserve about themselves.

My paper, ‘Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand: from metaphor to myth’, was the first on the agenda, the contents of which should be familiar to regular readers of Lost Legacy. The paper on such occasions carries careful academic referencing of the relevant literature as end notes in the paper, not normally a feature of a Blog post. Incidentally, readers wishing to receive a copy should email me (gavinAtnegwebdOtcom) and introduce themselves (pseudonyms and user-names are at odds with receiving something for nothing), and I shall send them an electronic file of the paper (you will not receive unwanted spam).

The session was chaired by Professor Steven Medema of the University of Colorado (Denver), now completing ten years as editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

One piece of private friendly advice I received later from a distinguished scholar (Professor Mary Morgan of LSE) was most valuable and will be addressed in my re-draft. My paper, she pointed out, does not open with a statement about the various ways in which modern economists use the metaphor of the invisible hand. In consequence it was not clear, she suggested, exactly to what I was objecting other than the assertion that Adam Smith did not mean the invisible hand to be treated other than as a metaphor.

For listeners, she asked, was I criticising the theory that an invisible hand that guided self-interested actions so that, whatever the intentions of the actors, they always produced benign outcomes, or was it a claim that the invisible hand was a mechanism that operated in markets (like the ‘free-rider’ mechanism in public goods)? Making this clear would guide listeners to the point I was making.

A theory can always be tested – did it correspond to or explain experience? Given that Adam Smith noted over 50 instances in Books I and II of Wealth Of Nations a selection of self-interested behaviours that had malign consequences (listed in the end notes to my paper) this make clear to economists my criticisms of the false ascription of such a theory to Adam Smith.

On reflection, I agree with Professor Morgan’s suggestion. I think writing Lost Legacy this past few years, it has become more or less a ‘conversation’ with myself. I know what I am talking about but I have slid into assuming that my several hundred daily readers also know what I am talking about, but when addressing colleagues, most of whom have not read Lost Legacy, they are left in the dark about its connections to modern economics.

Unfortunately, I cannot correct this weakness in my new book, Adam Smith: a moral philosopher and his political economy (August 2008), so I had better preface posts on Lost legacy with the necessary remarks.

The paper received a mixed reception, some friendly, some distinctly sceptical during the session - a few expressed private agreement later.

I shall report on some of the highlights for me of the papers that followed and the discussions.