Speaking of conservative grifters, have I discussed Vilfredo Pareto (1858-1920), the fellow who developed the notion of Pareto Optimality seen in neoclassical welfare economics and was an early follower of Italian fascism?
Interesting character. Mr. Pareto was the scion of a “noble, establishment elite, Italian family exiled to France. He had what is described as a middle-class upbringing and received a top notch technical education eventually earning a doctorate in engineering. Mr. Pareto became a very typical market utopian conservative while at university, detested the idea voters should be able to use democratic government to express their economic values and concerns, hated leftism and socialism, and was thus drawn to the politics of nascent European fascism. As what in the US would be called a “conservative,” Mr. Pareto is also described by some as a “classical liberal” or even by some non-US writers as simply a “liberal,” not to be confused with the traditional left “liberal” opposed to “conservative” in the USA. As I mentioned previously, old “classical liberalism” as anti-monarchism referenced both democracy and markets, so calling market utopian conservatives is half-true. Calling them simply “liberals” only works when using non-US definitions of “liberal” in which it means conservative, not US liberal.
Mr. Pareto was an early supporter of the originator of European fascism, Benito Mussolini, because he saw Il Duce's authoritarian conservative movement as a means to weaken or shrink democratic government and voter influence on the economy, thus fighting leftism, socialism, US liberalism, etc. In the field of economics, Mr. Pareto is famous for finding a way to misleadingly characterize market outcomes in normative terms as “socially optimal” and “welfare maximizing” while excluding considerations relating to interpersonal ethics, equity, justice, that would normally apply. Briefly, Mr. Pareto’s idea was if no interpersonal ethics were involved, including views on relative outcomes, on utilitarian or other grounds as fairness, justice, it should be normatively uncontroversial to make one person better off if no one worse off and to define optimality in those terms. That restricted normative concept is very useful for the economic status quo or establishment elite because it excludes from economic discussions of normative optimality any consideration of changes involving reducing their own economic power. It functions to defend status quo economic power. That concept laid the foundations for the misinterpretations of neoclassical welfare economics I call “anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style,” in which the ethical half-theory of the former is swapped out for the ethical full-theory of the latter.
Real neoclassical welfare economics is an ethical-half theory, at best, because it considers the normative aspects of economic arrangements without taking up any relevant ethical issues relating to resolving interpersonal conflicts of preferences, economic power, markets, allocating resources. Of course, ethical views on such matters make up the lion’s share of what most mean by socially optimal or welfare maximizing economic outcomes in normal discourse, rendering the conclusions of neoclassical welfare economics quite limited in scope and significance indeed in general contexts. Anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style equivocates on the economics-specific restricted sense of socially optimal, welfare maximizing, and the normal general sense of those terms including relevant considerations as interpersonal ethics to swap out the half-theory for the full.
There are often attending rhetorical flourishes, as suggesting what presents as a full ethical theory is only the normative, ethical position of economists qua economists, while omitting the relevant fact that role involves excluding relevant normative considerations as interpersonal ethics. When one leaves out that bit, it sounds as though one means merely it’s the ethical full-theory of economists, who presumably have delved into the matter, but may not be shared by those who endorse other and opposing ethical full-theories who haven’t studied economics. In a sense, that rhetorical line rests on popular ignorance of the explicitly partial normative argument in neoclassical welfare economics and the implied notion economists qua economists are meant to restrict themselves to that theory and thus ignore most of the relevant normative issues. One ends up with bad economists telling others what they ought to do as far as economic policy, ostensibly not considering interpersonal ethics but because policies always have interpersonal effects by just passing on their own ethical views in arcane ways, but only as economists, of course.
My point this week? Simply to highlight the connection between the false rhetoric of bad economics in the conservative style, its basis in neoclassical welfare economics, and the relation of both to the anti-democracy, anti-left, conservative, right wing fascism we see in the USA today.
Addendum: To avoid confusion relating to how I described Pareto Optimality in the context of neoclassical welfare economics, the "better off" in that sentence is the tautological one of moving up one's preference rank, no matter how self-destructive or unfortunate, not "happiness" or what have you.
