It occurred to me the other day one reason for the longevity of neoclassical welfare economics and even more troublingly common misinterpretations of that theory, which I’ve been calling bad economics, is that those who see problems with the ethical propositions expressed or ostensibly expressed in that theory don’t really present a united front. (It’s neither here nor there right now, but to avoid sounding excessively cryptic please recall I’ve argued before a great deal of the perceived controversy about neoclassical welfare economics actually involves common misinterpretations of that theory, perpetuated or allowed by academic economists, in which it appears to say a lot more about distributional issues than it really does, although the actual theory also has some philosophically interesting bits as well.)
A common and perhaps even dominant view among critics appears to be the best way to address this problems is to help economists do better ethical philosophy by, for example, re-instituting classes in the nearly extinct intellectual and academic field of the history of economic thought so they can understand something about the origins of modern welfare economics in the Deist moral philosophy of the eighteenth century, the developments involving ostensibly ethically optimal wages and Social Darwinism of the nineteenth century, and the significance of the subsequent major developments involving distributional indifference during the mid-twentieth century Cold War period, as well as teaching them some real ethical philosophy so they aren’t quite so clueless when it comes to evaluating ethical propositions and perceiving and appreciating the real ethical issues involved in evaluating economic systems and policies.
You may have noticed I’ve argued for a rather different approach, which is to take the ethical content out of academic economics entirely and make it a true science evaluated solely on the basis of its ability to predict and explain observable phenomena, rather than as a normative guide expressing ethical propositions and value judgments relating to what we would like the economy to do and evaluated at least in part according to how well it comports to people’s own ethical views, for one reason or another, or by how well it insulates people’s economic power from criticism and potential diminution. (It occurred to me recently another component of economic theory, distinct from the science, involves mathematical and logical optimization problems based on agreed upon objectives, which I suppose could remain part of academic economics but probably really belong in engineering or business school.)
From my perspective, the moral sensibilities and ethical beliefs relating to economic issues of academic economists and their supporters are rather less interesting and significant than the moral sensibilities and ethical beliefs relating to economic issues of those subjected to our economic system. I think what we really need is to get the general voting public talking about and debating the relevant ethical issues among themselves and then deciding appropriate courses of action using the apparatus of democratic government, informed hopefully by the thoughtful commentary of serious ethical philosophers or other sources and references such as religious texts and leaders, depending on the moral sentiments of those involved, and of course economists as to the factual content of how real markets may behave in an empirical, observable sense.
Although it seems rather obvious why many academic economists and their supporters would like to make their own moral sentiments and value judgments the deciding factor and lecture everyone else on what economic objectives are ethically correct and socially optimal and so on from their high horse, it’s not clear to me why the rest of us should go along with it. What’s so special about the ethical stylings of economists anyway? Why would anyone suppose they have any special insight into ethical philosophy or really philosophy of any sort including epistemology or the philosophy of science? What is so noteworthy about the moral sentiments of economists and their supporters compared to those of anyone else? Indeed, if one truly wanted to abdicate one’s social responsibilities as a citizen of a democratic nation and allow someone else to make the thorny and controversial ethical judgments relating to evaluating economic objectives, why on earth would one choose an economist, who likely spends a great deal of his or her time constructing fanciful models, working on math problems, drawing graphs, and so on, rather than some rather more serious philosopher who worked on ethical issues full time? No, I think the notion economists should do ethical philosophy for the rest of us and all we need do is work to improve their ability to do ethical philosophy is not the best course for dealing with the pervasive confusion and social conflict generated by purposefully opaque neoclassical welfare economics and the misinterpretations it naturally generates. The best course is to help economics finally become the real science many economists always professed it should be and to put resolving ethical issues affecting the whole of society back where it belongs, with the people.
