Maybe this week I can talk plainly about ... um ... talking plainly ... in the context of neoclassical welfare economics. You know, saying things directly, honestly, clearly? Not playing rhetorical word games? It’s one of my pet issues. Academic economists often rather fatuously laud themselves for their supposed intellectual rigor. Must refer to them using math in the context of theory or engineering models because, if you read my posts at all, one may wonder how rigorous they really are on other matters.
Consider the following proposition: Policy A results in everyone reaching his or her own highest ranked preference possible, given exogenous, external, pre-existing ethical decisions relating to how we should resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences. Also, we’re assessing Policy A not in the real world but in an artfully contrived world explicitly involving false factual premises, and thus pertaining only to what might be termed theoretical ciphers, not real people. How high an individual preference rank can any given cipher thus attain, given ubiquitous interpersonal conflicts of preferences, scarce resources? Perhaps not very high at all, depending on exogenous ethical inputs relating to resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences. On the other hand, some ciphers may manage very high individual preference ranks indeed, may get everything they want, again depending on the exogenous ethical inputs relating to resolving ubiquitous interpersonal conflicts of preferences over scarce resources.
Does that seem reasonably clear, rigorous? Exogenous ethical inputs? So for example, exogenous decisions relating to whether to use markets to resolve particular conflicts of preferences or, as with vaccines, some other system of distribution, allocation. Or also exogenous ethical decisions on how we define and distribute economic power, so labor and capital markets, unions, inheritance, lotteries, tax policy, government programs of various sorts, Social Security, and so on. So, if we assume all issues relating to the ethical resolution of all interpersonal conflicts of preferences have been addressed (by someone or other), as the definition, distribution, use of economic power for that purpose, then Policy A has the advantages we discussed earlier.
Now consider the following potential restatements of our proposition: 1) Policy A is efficient. 2) Policy A leads to a socially optimal result. 3) Policy A maximizes social welfare. 4) Policy A maximizes total social utility. 5) Policy A is Pareto optimal or efficient. Also, Policy A is still assessed in an artfully contrived world explicitly involving false factual premises, theoretical ciphers rather real people, but may be presented as a meaningful approximation of the real world for normative or ethical purposes.
Did you get the same impression from those restatements? It’s a bit trickier, isn’t it? One reason is because they use special economic interpretations of words like “efficient,” and “welfare,” and “utility,” and “social,” and even “optimum.” The terminology is recondite. A good deal of neoclassical welfare economics involves taking up specialized economic definitions of common words, using them in new and confusing ways, then lambasting others for misinterpreting them, which others and often economists themselves often seem to do. Also, there seems a confusing issue relating to the significance to the real world of a normative or ethical theory using false factual premises, a potential inappropriate application of methods from positive engineering models relating to false but simplifying assumptions. It all seems unnecessarily awkward and rhetorical, like a big old circle of nonsense. Start out with something simple enough, then complicate it by using words oddly, applied in odd contexts, then propose to laboriously explain all the unnecessary complications, terms, etc.
Why do you suppose they do that? To promote intellectual rigor and logic? To bring the light of positive science and math to ethics and philosophy? Or something a bit more prosaic? To pull a fast one on the people? Pull the wool over their eyes? Trick them? Con them? Or perhaps it’s more defensive than offensive? A laying down of logical and linguistic impediments, roadblocks, traps to prevent non-economists getting involved in economists’ special province? To keep other interfering with economists’ self-defined role as ethical arbiters?
Do I propose neoclassical welfare economics, with its tricksy word play, unclear relation to reality, is “bad” economics? Well, it’s misleading, arch, rhetorical, confusing. However, if one attends to the terms, conditions, it says what little it says, it’s not “bad” that way. On the other hand, it does seem purpose built to support the errors and confusion that lead to bona fide bad economics in the conservative style, which presents neoclassical welfare economics as saying something other and more than it does. So might we say, “bad-ish?”
Economists: Talk plainly. Take the Don’t Say Utility Challenge. Explain how the ethics of resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences enters or does not enter into your theory. Stop talking rot in an effort to mislead and deceive. Fulfill your intellectual responsibilities.
Non-economists: Wise up. Don’t sit there like wide-eyed children when conservative economists try to con you, waving their arms, getting all defensive and weird whenever challenged. Think critically. Don’t just accept whatever you’re told, or you’ll be told nonsense, and how.
