When I saw this item on Professor Greg Mankiw’s blog, I admit that my first thought was … someone has written Anti-Mankiw, Vols 1 and 2. Can I channel a (dead) zeitgeist or what? And, indeed, it turns out that someone is apparently trying to organize a collective to do something like that, if I understood the link correctly.
I rummaged around on the high bookshelves and, lo, there was an aged paperback copy of Anti-Samuelson, Vol. 2. (No idea where Volume 1 went. Object lesson in why it is time to get rid of the books that no one will ever open again, and save future generations the trouble.) I realize that this makes me seem (i) truly econo-geeky in all the wrong ways, (ii) chomskyesque and intellectual radical-chic, but then I am the product of a passage from left to right, (iii) a middle aged academic bitterly clinging to the truths of the 1970s.
Except that I never actually read it. My problem was, I came very late to economics from philosophy – it was not until law school that I took any economics, so I hadn’t read Samuelson and couldn’t understand three sentences of Anti-Samuelson, either the economics or the radical critique. It just sat on a shelf in my library looking chic and radical, until it started looking aged and bitter.
It probably is true, as this website notes, that Mankiw is the new Samuelson. I just bought a used copy on Amazon of Mankiw’s Essentials; I used to read novels at night, but this is more – more soothing, somehow. I read it and the world makes Bourgeois Sense; it must have been how the High Victorians felt. All seems right with the world – not because there’s some free lunch someplace, but that even with the tradeoffs all netted out, we’re still on the upside. Otherwise, I’m afraid I too often feel like Cacambo asking Candide, “‘Sir, what is optimism?’ ‘Alas, it is the mania for thinking we are happy when in fact we are miserable’.”
Plus, Mankiw is such a clear, effortless explainer. I wish I could write like that. [No, you write like this: see next graf. -ed.]
However, the really, really great thing is not merely to be named an “instrument of bourgeois ideology.” Although, come to think of it, that’s pretty cool. What’s not to like, as I suspect my students today would say? That’s the crucial gap between the 1970s and now – while there is a segment (larger at my institution than most, I suppose – Anonster, feel free to weigh in here, and btw are you ever going to out yourself and let me buy you coffee?) that can say that like it’s a bad thing, the vast majority of students I teach, if they understood it at all, would think utterly without irony that it’s about the best back of the book endorsement an author could hope for.
As in, “This instrument of bourgeois ideology will have a permanent place on the bookshelf of your mind. Generations will be reading this instrument of bourgeois ideology down the road. The author of this brilliantly accessible textbook is truly an instrument of bourgeois ideology. Future generations of students will thank Greg Mankiw for his sublime instrumentation of bourgeois ideology. There are few such instruments as this one in your hands.”
The really truly great thing, though, would be to have some graduate students devote years of their lives to a line by line radical critique of your work. Two volumes. One of which is still up on my shelves. Intellectual immortality. (Update: Well! Thanks to Professor Mankiw for the link.)
SenatorX says:
I have one anti-Mankiw comment. I believe he suggested (via a student’s idea-I think) that negative interest rates might be a good idea.
April 18, 2010, 11:36 pmgab says:
“That’s the crucial gap between the 1970s and now — while there is a segment (larger at my institution than most, I suppose — Anonster, feel free to weigh in here, and btw are you ever going to out yourself and let me buy you coffee?) that can say that like it’s a bad thing, the vast majority of students I teach, if they understood it at all, would think utterly without irony that it’s about the best back of the book endorsement an author could hope for.”
Was that an English sentence? Man, talk about stream of consciousness. I mean really, I had to read it about 3 times before I could make it make sense.
April 19, 2010, 12:47 amOpenVolokh says:
First, I agree that Mankiw doesn’t totally suck as a writer.
But his textbook is going to die shortly after he stops updating it. It isn’t going to inform future generations (except indirectly). That is not an insult, just a fact about the textbook market. Can you imagine textbook publishers saying: We don’t need new editions, everything you need is what Mankiw wrote 50 years ago before he died. Oh, btw, there are about 50 bazillion copies out there now on the used textbook market and you don’t need us anymore! This same fact goes for Krugman as well, whose textbook is in 3rd or 2nd place now. The truly enduring influence of these public intellectuals will not lie in their textbooks.
If Mankiw wants to influence future generations directly, he is going to have to write something more enduring than a mere textbook. When Mankiw writes an equivalent of A General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money THEN he will have a chance of influencing future generations.
April 19, 2010, 1:26 amKirk Parker says:
May we all be so fortunate as to be among the ones, in our fields, that the Young Turks think they need to take down.
April 19, 2010, 1:29 amKirk Parker says:
gab,
OK, so the author needs an editor. At least he’s writing!
April 19, 2010, 2:06 amShelby says:
Not having closely followed academic economics, all I can say is, yeah, pretty much right. Oh, and gab, try reading slower and sounding out the big words.
April 19, 2010, 2:15 amOpenVolokh says:
Kirk Parker,
Actually, it is just a clever ploy by Kenneth Anderson to make Mankiw’s writing look better. How better to prove how good someone else’s writing is that to provide an example of bad writing.
I just realized that there must be something wrong with me. I read that sentence without blinking. I should have had to re-read it 3 times like gab. There is seriously something wrong with me…
Hey, maybe I just GET stream of consciousness. I suspect that Kenneth Anderson is drifting to the dark side. Kenneth! I am your father… Join me!… Join me on the dark side! You know that stream of consciousness is your destiny too! You may have been lured by the sweet song of Mankiw, but that is not YOU.
April 19, 2010, 2:22 amRicardo says:
Economists just don’t write “big idea” books anymore. One of Mankiw’s biggest contributions are a paper cowritten by Romer and Weil that argues that human capital and technology rather than physical capital alone are major determinants of economic growth. The other is a theoretical justification for the idea of “sticky” prices — Keynes always thought firms would be slow to change prices in response to either an economic boom or (especially) a recession. Mankiw argued this was true and justified if firms incur “menu costs” or large fixed costs associated with changing their prices.
These two ideas will probably be around after Mankiw dies. Economists — being relatively little interested in intellectual history — will probably forget who originated them in time. Adam Smith’s ideas influence almost everything economists do and yet most economists seem to go through earning their Ph.D.s without ever cracking open “The Wealth of Nations.” That’s real immortality — people are so used to your ideas they forget to cite you or even read your original writings.
April 19, 2010, 4:12 amOpenVolokh says:
Ricardo,
Yeah, it is kind of funny too. A lot of economists simply have no idea what Adam Smith said in the Wealth of Nations. He positively did not believe in laissez-faire for example.
It is sort of sad that many economists think they know much more than they actually do and that their conception of their own field is often skewed and divorced from history. The classical economists had a broader conception of economics than the narrow conceits advanced by many modern economists.
The good news it that with the rise in prestige of behavioral economics and even works like Freakonomics (however flawed) the conceptions of economics is broadening and economists are starting to face the reality that they are going to have to interface with the other social sciences and that their narrow pretensions to imitate physics are not getting them anywhere. I think economics is headed in a simultaneously more useful direction and more humble direction. It will have to exercise more humility in its pretensions as it starts to grapple with the problems it has previously ignored or assumed away while living in an unreal bubble caused by the adoption of unrealistic assumptions for the purposes of mathematical modeling.
Welcome to the 21st century. Mathematical modeling is now only a subset of the sort of modeling that is practically possible.
I think you will start to seeing economists writing “big idea” books again. Look at Nudge.
April 19, 2010, 4:40 amStephen Lathrop says:
Nobody who hates barking dogs is ever going to be entirely comfortable with Mankiw, and his property rights justification for barking dog extortion.
More to the point, what do doodles prove? For that matter, what does mathematics prove, other than the fact that mathematics is generally internally consistent? Unless someone figures out how to create empirical proof for mathematical economic theorems, Mankiw is destined to be remembered as a leading exponent of a doomed intellectual tradition. It’s the tradition of making stuff up using numbers, and then asserting it’s true even though you have no evidence—or despite the evidence.
But Mankiw does have one good trick. He knows how to capitalize on the unfortunate fact that people tend to believe uncritically the most complicated stuff they can understand. That happens because once you get to your comprehension limit, adding a refutation puts you on overload. For a lot of politicians, the Laffer curve was the limit. For a good smart politician like Obama, maybe it’s Mankiw.
Look around folks. Mathematical economics tells you unfettered free trade makes us better off. The formerly industrial midwest tells you it doesn’t. Which seems more persuasive?
April 19, 2010, 4:54 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
OpenVolokh-
When Mankiw writes an equivalent of A General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money THEN he will have a chance of influencing future generations.
I wonder how long its going to take after we have a hyperinflationary episode in a developed western country for Keynes to be discredited. It’s telling that a lot of the hedge fund crowd has nicknamed Ben Bernake “Zimbabwe Ben”. But I suppose the Keynsians will try and blame something other than inflationary policies. It will be the job of the Austrians and libertarians to make sure the blame doesn’t get shifted.
April 19, 2010, 5:02 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
Stephen Lathrop-
Look around folks. Mathematical economics tells you unfettered free trade makes us better off. The formerly industrial midwest tells you it doesn’t. Which seems more persuasive?
It’s not just the modelers that say that, the Austrians do too.
What do you think would happen if companies from other countries engaged in free trade and US companies didn’t? Remember, the US market is big, but it is not growing as fast as some markets in other countries. Tariffs and subsidies for a captive US market would only go so far.(And the outrage at being forced to overpay for nice foreign products would also tend to prevent too much protectionism.)
Also, what is different about the midwest compared to the other areas of the country that are doing OK? (Or were doing OK until the recession.)
April 19, 2010, 5:26 amOpenVolokh says:
American Psikhushka,
What is your academic background and why should I care what you think?
April 19, 2010, 5:26 amOpenVolokh says:
I think you are being a little harsh with Mankiw. He is more complicated than you think. For example, he happens to agree with both John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman on different things. So, he definitely is more complicated than the one dimensional picture you are painting.
His motive for writing his textbook, as he freely admits, was making money. And it has certainly done that quite well. The book is well-executed, for what it is. But I obviously like the Krugman/Well textbook better, given its more nuanced discussions of economics 101. Whether Mankiw will ever have a real intellectual impact depends on whether he ever writes a “big ideas” book.
On the other hand, he has had his really ridiculous moments, as when he suggested that the relevant comparison might be the taxes per person rather than taxes as a percentage of GDP, at least for “some purposes.” (What those purpose are, he never says!) See the post here.
Or his bizarro and very easily answered “challenge” to utilitarians about why we don’t tax height.
On the other hand, I tend to think he has started to move away from his more interesting and complicated mode of thinking to more simplistic modes of thinking. But what can you really tell from his blog, except that he has a tendency to engage in some rhetorical excesses (which seem to be increasing in frequency) and has some really ridiculous ideas (i.e. taxing height, gdp per person, perhaps the barking dogs example, which I am not familiar with).
April 19, 2010, 5:40 amdearieme says:
“..Mankiw… argues that human capital and technology rather than physical capital alone are major determinants of economic growth.” I dare say. Doubtless hundreds have said it before him, most of them not economists. What did he contribute – boil down that rather obvious supposition into a few equations?
“a theoretical justification for the idea of “sticky” prices..”: surely lots of businessmen would be intimately familiar with the idea of “menu costs” – did Mankiw make a contribution beyond a bit of mathematical dabbling?
N.B. This is not a dig at Mankiw in particular, but at the whole absurd charade of economists claiming as a new insight what is a perfectly commonplace observation.
April 19, 2010, 5:50 amAnderson says:
I like Prof. A’s more discursive style. Just because we’re on the internet doesn’t mean we should all be reduced to thinking in Lolcat.
But then, my appreciation for personal style and sophisticated syntax surely marks me as a product of bourgeois ideology.
April 19, 2010, 7:03 amMark N. says:
It’s somewhat funny in that it seems like that should be the case, but in practice, it seems a lot of the fancy English comes from leftist academics, while the right expounds the virtues of plain talk and the common man. Kind of a reversal from the era when the right was the defender of erudition and “high culture”, and the left promoted the plain-speaking common man. (William F. Buckley was perhaps the last prominent right-wing American pundit who explicitly aligned himself with “high culture” rather than populism.)
April 19, 2010, 7:16 amSill says:
Amazing how these ideas were taught in Economics 101 and Price Theory class before Manikew was born!
April 19, 2010, 7:33 amAnderson says:
Mark N correctly notes what for short we could call the Palnization of the Right, but there’s another tradition, the kind of people who read The New Criterion and sport the Great Books on their shelves.
(But are liberals more likely to be lit majors, and thus familiar with more elevated syntax and style?)
One probably can’t read too much politics into literary preferences. Prof. A and I both admire Stendhal, as do Al Gore and Richard Posner.
April 19, 2010, 7:45 amAnderson says:
(Sorry, “Palinization” – didn’t mean to go *that* short.)
April 19, 2010, 7:49 amDesiderius says:
“What is your academic background and why should I care what you think?”
But you repeat yourself. Leiter, is that you?
April 19, 2010, 8:23 amMark N. says:
I think yes in general, although there are pockets (like classics) where more conservative attitudes probably prevail. If you were to ask me to bet whether a recent author of a 5-clause sentence were from the left or from the right, though, I would bet left. Among conservatives with PhDs, I would guess more are in areas where elevated writing isn’t well liked, like the sciences or engineering (there is plenty of jargon there, but the preferred writing style is declarative, short, choppy sentences that impart just-the-facts, preferably with reference to Figure 3).
At least some of the left is aware of the oddity of the situation as well: in response to a question about his writing style, prominent Marxist theorist Frederic Jameson noticed, “What is socially offensive about ‘theoretical’ texts like my own is, of course, not their inherent difficulty, but rather the signals of higher education, that is, of class privilege, which they emit”.
April 19, 2010, 8:32 amStephen Lathrop says:
In the U.S. in the latter 19th century and early 20th, protectionism accompanied rapid growth. Not sure what other countries were doing at the time. Presumably there is no appropriate historical model that offers a comparison of U.S. protectionism with some other major trader practicing free trade. If there were, that would be an interesting comparison, but I’m pretty sure we would know about it. It would certainly be an example that I would find more persuasive than mathematical conjuring.
Among those fast growing markets China comes to mind. Not much of an example of free trade, though.
I don’t know? The midwest practices protectionism and other areas in the U.S. do better because they practice free trade? Not sure what you are getting at.
Plus which the midwest is just shorthand for economic collapse. It could be upstate New York, most of New England, industrial Pennsylvania, North Carolina, large parts of California, etc. Large parts of this country are practicing economic development in reverse, and the enormous costs of that don’t seem to make it into the free trade models at all.
It really is time to ease up on the ciphering and look around.
April 19, 2010, 9:04 amRicardo says:
Well, Keynes did in fact live through the German hyperinflation of 1923. Can you point to the specific quote by Keynes on the subject of hyperinflation that you think discredits him?
I’ll actually save you the trouble and say that you will not find such a quote. Keynes explicitly acknowledged the link between a rapidly expanding money supply and inflation. “The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance.” — John Maynard Keynes, “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”
April 19, 2010, 9:29 amRicardo says:
The contribution was to back what you consider an obvious supposition with empirical evidence which had been lacking up until that point. The evidence is actually flawed but it was a useful rejoinder to people who were arguing for a simplistic focus on the role of capital accumulation in development. This in turn fueled the notion that poor countries were poor because they lacked savings and that this therefore necessitated foreign aid from rich countries to poor.
April 19, 2010, 9:56 amStephen Lathrop says:
Can you say more about that?
I am generally under the impression that economic hypotheses rarely get empirical backing, except maybe from statistical histories that can’t qualify as experiments because real life almost never sufficiently winnows the variables. I would be delighted to learn I’m wrong, and that somehow, somewhere rigorous empirical economics is surging ahead without my knowledge. I suppose you can hear a bit of skepticism, but my enthusiasm would be genuine if I were wrong.
April 19, 2010, 10:26 amEapen Thampy says:
This is separate argument but I thought was worth reading. http://ducksandeconomics.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/anti-mankiw-whats-wrong-with-the-most-popular-economics-textbook/
April 19, 2010, 10:33 ambyomtov says:
It’s telling that a lot of the hedge fund crowd has nicknamed Ben Bernake “Zimbabwe Ben”.
Is it? If that’s what they think then why is the 10-yr Treasury yielding only 3.8%?
April 19, 2010, 10:34 amDesiderius says:
Mark N.,
“prominent Marxist theorist Frederic Jameson noticed, ‘What is socially offensive about ‘theoretical’ texts like my own is, of course, not their inherent difficulty, but rather the signals of higher education, that is, of class privilege, which they emit’.”
Marx was the original trustifarian – his uncle was the founder of Phillips – so it may be “socially offensive” but it should not be surprising.
Marxist theory (explicit and implicit) is the ancien regime’s method of keeping down the rising classes that the hated bourgeois values would otherwise produce, all the while claiming to champion the plight of the poor. Tory Democracy. Bread and circuses. Likely the oldest game in the book.
April 19, 2010, 10:37 amwm13 says:
The past quarter century really has been “the age of Reagan,” hasn’t it, when you realize that no young person today has even heard of “Anti-Samuelson.” (I went to college in the 1970s.)
April 19, 2010, 10:37 ambyomtov says:
Stephen Lathrop,
I am generally under the impression that economic hypotheses rarely get empirical backing, except maybe from statistical histories that can’t qualify as experiments because real life almost never sufficiently winnows the variables. I would be delighted to learn I’m wrong, and that somehow, somewhere rigorous empirical economics is surging ahead without my knowledge.
You are badly overstating things. Sure, economics has to rely on historical data, and I guess that doesn’t count as an “experiment” the way a controlled design in other disciplines would. But there certainly is a ton of attention paid to the statistical techniques used to analyze the data, and there is often quite a lot of data to begin with.
Anyway, what would you suggest?
April 19, 2010, 10:39 amAnderson says:
Desiderius, I’ve never heard Lenin described as a Tory Democrat, but the idea of his being interchangeable with Disraeli is charming, in a Tom Stoppard kind of way.
April 19, 2010, 10:44 amAnderson says:
I’m sympathetic to Lathrop’s point, but his criterion would pretty much strike evolutionary biology from the “sciences” list.
Better perhaps to argue that econ bears more similarity to biology than to physics?
April 19, 2010, 11:03 amFedya says:
Are there any economics textbooks that begin, “It was a dark and stormy night”?
April 19, 2010, 11:17 amlgm says:
It’s wrong to call Mankiw an “instrument of bourgeois ideology”. He’s just a professor trying to get it right, not always successfully. The “instruments”, played by their owners, work at Hoover, Cato, Heritage, etc.
April 19, 2010, 11:20 amAllan Walstad says:
lgm, that’s you sneer for the day. Got anything better?
April 19, 2010, 11:41 amAllan Walstad says:
Keynes made a lot more sense there than later on.
I knew if I persisted in reading your comments I’d eventually find something I could agree with!
On the other hand, I visited the link you offered to support the statement that Adam Smith was not an advocate of laissez faire. Many of the items on the list are quite consistent with a free market economy–”Enforcement of contracts by a system of justice,” “Rights of farmers to send farm produce to the best market,” [accidentally hit submit button, will continue]
April 19, 2010, 11:52 amAnonsters says:
Ouch, called out in the OP.
I shall out myself (selectively of course) if I can get my life arranged in the next week.
I think Kenneth Anderson managed to call us vapid leftists in a vaguely charming way. :P
But yes, I agree about WCL. As one fellow student (an avowed libertarian) said to me one day, “I thought I knew what ‘liberal’ was. And then I came here.”
April 19, 2010, 11:54 amtamerlane says:
The link provides a perfect example of textbook envy: Imagine you’re some poor economist with no professional reputation; stuck out in Amherst, Massachusetts; teaching people with as little chance at professional success as yourself.
Naturally you’ld have a grudge against Mankiw. The guy’s mobbed by cute grad students at conferences; he’s living the good life in Cambridge Mass. (I’ve eaten there and the food really is good at the Harvard Faculty Club); he’s raking in the royalties from the textbook that everyone but you uses; he gets the kind of students who make teaching a pleasure.
Proposing an anti-Mankiw text is a mentally healthy way of working through your frustrations.
April 19, 2010, 12:06 pmAllan Walstad says:
[continued]“…Coinage and the Mint…”
April 19, 2010, 12:13 pmSmith strongly argued for less government intervention in markets, and in fact Wealth of Nations was primarily a broadside against the program of interference with free international trade known as “mercantilism.” He also pointed out how government regulations would get used to promote special interest–again, mercantilism being the obvious example. Smith was not an “anarcho-capitalist,” but he was a proponent of laissez faire. In fact he praised the French physiocrats, with whom the term laissez-faire originated.
Kenneth Anderson says:
Anonsters – well, it could have been better/worse! I was thinking about a whole post just for you! :) But I’m curious – and I realize that this is not very interesting to those of us not at our school – what is your perception of the median political view of the student body at WCL? I really don’t have much of a sense. email me to my wcl address, if you’d like to take up coffee with me – my phone is mostly unattended.
April 19, 2010, 12:21 pmAllan Walstad says:
Whatever “bourgeois ideology” means, I would characterize Mankiw’s book more as an instrument of the ideology of economic interventionism. All these graphs laid out in the Keynesian tradition, purportedly demonstrating how monetary and fiscal policy promote growth and stabilize the economy; the best one can say is that it might have some short-run validity, sort of like how, in the short run, an injection of adrenaline will perk you up. Shockingly little recognition of the fact that the long run is made up of short runs, and an adrenaline IV hookup is not going to keep you perky or healthy.
April 19, 2010, 12:32 pmAnonsters says:
I’m not sure whether to be flattered or frightened. ;)
That’s a tough one. I think it’s certainly somewhere on the left, but I also know that we have enough libertarian-leaning folks and genuine conservatives thrown into the mix to keep us from flying off the edge of the political universe. (I sometimes wonder, too, looking at the cohort of my generation, whether even those of us who strongly self-identify as liberal (progressive) inevitably have certain (though perhaps not dominant) libertarian strains running through our political lives.) It’s also tough because the people who are committed are, well, committed. As one who rather prefers to read and think about things, one quickly feels insufficient in the face of someone doing human rights clinic work while volunteering at a place that represents low-income immigrants in the District while running two student advocacy organizations while lobbying Congresspeople on Tuesdays and Thursdays for ENDA’s passage while etc. So perhaps the degree of commitment of some slightly skews one’s perception. On the other hand, from the anecdotal evidence of conversations with people who are not avowedly liberal, and from my own experience (coming to WCL self-identified as a moderate with sympathies for progressivism, turning into a bomb-throwing lefty (although my own personal psychology can, perhaps in large part, account for that)), I think it’s certainly true we’re more leftward of center than average. [On the other other hand, and in spite of what some commenters probably believe about us whackos, I've found the student community largely accepting of people of all stripes.]
Will do.
April 19, 2010, 12:50 pmRicardo says:
Stephen, in macroeconomics Christina Romer (now with the Obama Administration) has done some very good empirical work in trying to find “natural experiments” where there was a sudden unexpected policy change and then teasing out the statistical impact.
Most of the more rigorous empirical work is being done in micro for the simple reason that you can get big sample sizes and can better control for confounding variables. David Card and Alan Krueger have done lots of work in empirical labor economics based on natural experiment methodology. Steve Levitt is a famous popularizer of this but, by his own admission, he doesn’t really address “mainstream” economic questions (and some of his papers have come under heavy fire for flaws).
There is an entire “mafia” of development economists doing randomized control trials of different economic policies or interventions. A few of the more prolific researchers here are Esther Duflo, Sendhil Mullainathan, Dean Karlan, Edward Miguel, Michael Kremer and many others.
April 19, 2010, 12:59 pmThe Unbeliever says:
That’s “good” news? I thought we just had a series of rather convincing posts on the flaws of behavioral studies and the implications of using them for implementing policies.
For every “Nudge” inspired non-mathematical behavioral model you’ll see, expect to see a post facto “Black Swan” book 25 years later that shows why it wasn’t such a good idea after all.
I’m not saying mathematical models are the end-all-be-all superior tool we should be using, but we can not take as a given that the “broadening” of economics is a good thing. Decrying cold, statistical, theoretical constructs because they don’t feel personal enough is an old rhetorical device, usually by academics who want to do something new and shiny within their fields.
April 19, 2010, 1:03 pmStephen Lathrop says:
I would suggest reticence—modesty about policy prescriptions in the absence of provable future results. It also wouldn’t hurt if the economics profession threw in with the doctors on, “First, do no harm.”
April 19, 2010, 1:46 pmStephen Lathrop says:
That has troubled me too. In fact, I’m not sure we shouldn’t regard the notion of evolution as the concluding triumph of natural philosophy, as opposed to falsifiable science.
But I take solace in the fact that you really can do experiments using microbes that confirm natural selection pretty convincingly. We even do them by accident, and end up with antibiotic resistant bacteria as a result.
April 19, 2010, 1:54 pmAnonsters says:
Yeah, but doctors don’t have to get tenured. ;)
April 19, 2010, 1:55 pmrachel says:
If the productive-consumer classes are to be tapped with Keynes
April 19, 2010, 1:58 pmand capped with pigovian carbon taxes a la Manciw
will any resulting
socialenvironmentaleconomic gainsmatter one whit when Iceland decides to achoo?
Anonsters says:
Speaking of Iceland achooing.
Neither here nor there, but it’s spectacular.
April 19, 2010, 2:05 pmrachel says:
“Neither here nor there”. Thanks for the pic, Anonster. My point was Nature IS here and there, and our nature, behavior and intentions, is a subset.
April 19, 2010, 3:13 pmStrict says:
“Marx was the original trustifarian — his uncle was the founder of Phillips — ”
And by uncle, you mean cousin. And Philips was founded when Marx was over 70 years old….
April 19, 2010, 3:26 pmAnonsters says:
Six degrees of separation between Karl Marx and Kevin Bacon. Ready…
Go!
April 19, 2010, 4:06 pmone problem says:
is that mankiw is a smug f*ck.
April 19, 2010, 5:32 pmAnderson says:
Mr. Lathrop, if you have time, a book on evolution might assuage some Popperian qualms. There is plenty of room for falsifiability. Fossils of bunnies in the same stratum as dinosaurs, for instance.
April 19, 2010, 6:12 pmPerseus says:
David Brooks seems to have assumed Buckley’s mantle as a defender of high (or at least BoBo) culture on the right, though Brooks obviously lacks Buckley’s Baroque literary style.
April 19, 2010, 6:23 pmAmerican Psikhushka says:
OpenVolokh-
What is your academic background and why should I care what you think?
Argument from authority and possible ad hominem. Worry about defending your ideas, theories, opinions, and policy recommendations, not criticizing my credentials.
But what the hell, I’ll play along without breaking anonymity: I have an MBA and law degree from a state university, but if you talk slowly and use small words I can usually follow along. I don’t hold any position in academia and haven’t published in any academic journals.
April 19, 2010, 6:47 pmPerseus says:
Why don’t you tell about your own academic background so that we can apply the appropriate discount rate on your pronouncements outside of your area of academic expertise?
April 19, 2010, 8:26 pmOpenVolokh says:
I am not the one making any wild and extreme claims. When people get started with crazy talk, they had better be well credentialed before I waste any time on them.
April 19, 2010, 9:04 pmOpenVolokh says:
What argument? Do you even know what an argument is?
A question designed to elicit facts about whether your crazy talk is even worth allocating time, which is a scarce resource, responding to is NOT an argument. It is a question made in order to determine whether an actual argument is worth making.
In this case, I have determined that it is not worth responding to. Let the record reflect that this does not constitute formal proof that your crazy talk is false or logically unsound.
Let the record further reflect that I should have just ignored your crazy talk rather than asking about your background.
April 19, 2010, 9:15 pmMikeT says:
I had never heard of this, and a little investigation shows this isn’t quite true. Karl Marx’s first cousin founded
April 19, 2010, 9:28 pmPhillips in 1891, 8 years after Marx died.
Perseus says:
So I guess we’ll just have to take it on your authority that you are a good judge of wild and extreme claims, which I find suspect when you make the dubious claim that Smith was not an advocate of laissez-faire.
April 19, 2010, 9:38 pmRicardo says:
Darwin also explicitly stated another way his theory could be falsified: show him an example of an organ that could not have possibly evolved through gradual changes. He then goes through a list of organs he has studied in detail in a variety of organisms and shows that in each one, gradual changes are plausible.
The important thing is that Darwin knew that the study of anatomy and biology would grow by leaps and bounds after his writing. He did exactly what Karl Popper said a real scientist should do and made a “costly prediction” about the future direction of scientific discoveries. Advances in biology appear to adhere to Darwin’s predictions.
Or to use another example from Richard Dawkins, if we one day discover polar bears in the Antarctic or penguins in the Arctic (not placed there by humans, of course), evolution would have a pretty difficult time explaining that. Evolution predicts that land masses that have been isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years and that provide no plausible means of animals or plant seeds migrating there tend to have very strange and unique plants and animals living there. I believe more such isolated land masses have been discovered and explored in detail since Darwin’s famous voyage on the HMS Beagle and, again, they vindicate this prediction.
April 19, 2010, 10:03 pmDesiderius says:
Mike T and Strict,
“And by uncle, you mean cousin. And Philips was founded when Marx was over 70 years old….”
If you’d like to argue that Marx was a prole, fire away. From the Wiki:
“Karl Marx married Jenny von Westphalen, the educated daughter of a Prussian baron, on June 19, 1843 in the Pauluskirche, at Bad Kreuznach. Marx and Jenny had seven children, but due to poverty, only three survived to adulthood.[10] Marx’s major source of income was from the support of Friedrich Engels, who was drawing a steadily increasing income from the family business in Manchester. This was supplemented by weekly articles written as a foreign correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune.[11] Inheritances from one of Jenny’s uncles and her mother who died in 1856 allowed the family to move to somewhat more salubrious lodgings at 9 Grafton Terrace, Kentish Town a new suburb on the then-outskirts of London. Marx generally lived a hand-to-mouth existence, forever at the limits of his resources, although this did to some extent depend upon his spending on relatively bourgeois luxuries, which he felt were necessities for his wife and children given their social status and the mores of the time.”
Trustifarian to a T.
April 19, 2010, 11:02 pmDesiderius says:
Anderson,
“Desiderius, I’ve never heard Lenin described as a Tory Democrat, but the idea of his being interchangeable with Disraeli is charming, in a Tom Stoppard kind of way.”
Yeah, well, when you’re a Whig in the wrong century (and counting!), everybody harshing your mellow looks like a Tory. I’ll grant that Disraeli is likely the best of the bunch, though this Obama chap shows promise.
April 19, 2010, 11:11 pmDesiderius says:
“Better perhaps to argue that econ bears more similarity to biology than to physics?”
Good one. Biology squared, I think.
April 19, 2010, 11:13 pmOpenVolokh says:
You should make up your own mind on that. Time is a scarce resource and you do not have time to respond to every argument that has some merit much less all those that are completely off.
Make up your own mind.
April 20, 2010, 12:29 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
OpenVolokh-
What argument? Do you even know what an argument is?
A question designed to elicit facts about whether your crazy talk is even worth allocating time, which is a scarce resource, responding to is NOT an argument. It is a question made in order to determine whether an actual argument is worth making.
Well, you’re arguing now that now that I’m not worth responding to because of your assessment of my academic credentials. Which was the logical progression from your question, which is why I pointed it out. The nonsense about “crazy talk” is a more direct ad hominem, so that was accurate as well.
In this case, I have determined that it is not worth responding to. Let the record reflect that this does not constitute formal proof that your crazy talk is false or logically unsound.
Fine with me. I may respond to some of your posts to express agreement or disagreement to propel the discussion forward, feel free to ignore them.
April 20, 2010, 3:49 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
Stephen Lathrop-
In the U.S. in the latter 19th century and early 20th, protectionism accompanied rapid growth. Not sure what other countries were doing at the time.
Apples and oranges. You’re talking about the Industrial Revolution period, so there would have been some degree of growth no matter what. And at the time protectionism was less of a factor, because transportation was slower and less efficient.(Although it isn’t much of a stretch to believe it did hinder things.) Comparing that period to the modern economy is not very relevant.
Presumably there is no appropriate historical model that offers a comparison of U.S. protectionism with some other major trader practicing free trade. If there were, that would be an interesting comparison, but I’m pretty sure we would know about it. It would certainly be an example that I would find more persuasive than mathematical conjuring
In the modern economy it’s not very hard to predict what would happen. International competitors would have more flexibility and cheaper costs and likely be able to manufacture a product that was better at a particular price.
Among those fast growing markets China comes to mind. Not much of an example of free trade, though.
In what sense? They are certainly able to manufacture many things more cheaply than a lot of other places. Even cars from US manufacturers have many of their components made in China.
I don’t know? The midwest practices protectionism and other areas in the U.S. do better because they practice free trade? Not sure what you are getting at.
A lot of manufacturing has relocated or chose to locate in the South or Southwest.
April 20, 2010, 4:14 amOpenVolokh says:
And I appreciate your responses. I just find predictions of hyperinflation simultaneously extreme, obviously way out of the mainstream for economists, but also too complicated too rebut in a reasonable amount of time.
However, I have appreciated other comments by you.
So, when I say crazy talk, I do not mean you are crazy. I mean your idea is something I find crazy. We all have crazy ideas sometimes. It is totally normal.
April 20, 2010, 4:35 amZamfir says:
1. Kevin Bacon’s father Edmund was apparently an influential city planner,
April 20, 2010, 4:50 am2. He was a friend of philosopher Lewis Mumford.
3. Mumford was a pupil and later friend of Scottish biologist Patrick Geddes (who was also a pioneer in city planning).
4. Geddes studied under Thomas Huxley, of Darwin fame.
5. Another student of Huxley was Ray Lankester (who probably knew Geddes personally, but I can’t find proof of that direct link).
6. Lankester was a friend of Marx, and spoke on his funeral.
American Psikhushka says:
Ricardo-
Well, Keynes did in fact live through the German hyperinflation of 1923.
Perhaps I should have said modern western country.
Can you point to the specific quote by Keynes on the subject of hyperinflation that you think discredits him?
No, just setting up the structure and mechanisms for inflationary interventionism and claiming it is acceptable to steadily inflate is bad enough.
I’ll actually save you the trouble and say that you will not find such a quote. Keynes explicitly acknowledged the link between a rapidly expanding money supply and inflation. “The inflationism of the currency systems of Europe has proceeded to extraordinary lengths. The various belligerent Governments, unable, or too timid or too short-sighted to secure from loans or taxes the resources they required, have printed notes for the balance.” — John Maynard Keynes, “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”
Perhaps they’ve twisted his theories to the point where the school of economics that bears his name doesn’t bear much resemblance to his original philosophy. But in any case with inflationary policies and a fiat currency there is ultimately no discipline on government spending – they will keep spending and look to print their way out of it. When that happens conditions are ripe for hyperinflation.
April 20, 2010, 5:40 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
byomtov-
Is it? If that’s what they think then why is the 10-yr Treasury yielding only 3.8%?
Don’t know. Some prominent names like Jim Rogers and others have been recommending commodities and precious metals for some time. Besides, the big buyers of treasuries are central banks and sovereign funds.(Although in some cases buying has slowed there.)
If you’re wondering why they haven’t shorted them lower maybe they’d rather place alternate positive bets rather than a negative bet on treasuries. The whole “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” thing.
April 20, 2010, 5:59 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
OpenVolokh-
I just find predictions of hyperinflation simultaneously extreme, obviously way out of the mainstream for economists…
You might want to check out this article. It’s from a financial site, but it references the work of an economist that’s an expert on hyperinflation.
April 20, 2010, 6:16 amStephen Lathrop says:
In a post above I called mathematical economics “the tradition of making stuff up using numbers, and then asserting it’s true even though you have no evidence—or despite the evidence.” Apparently in an irrationally hopeful mood at the time, I called it a doomed intellectual tradition. I probably should have said it ought to be doomed, wiped out and got rid of, but unfortunately appears pretty robust.
April 20, 2010, 11:16 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
Stephen Lathrop-
In a post above I called mathematical economics “the tradition of making stuff up using numbers, and then asserting it’s true even though you have no evidence—or despite the evidence.” Apparently in an irrationally hopeful mood at the time, I called it a doomed intellectual tradition. I probably should have said it ought to be doomed, wiped out and got rid of, but unfortunately appears pretty robust.
It depends on what you’re measuring and the conclusions you are drawing. The Austrian School of economics has a good record of making predictions of what will happen under certain conditions. Other traditions – that are more math and modeling heavy – not so much.
April 20, 2010, 1:59 pmEconRob says:
I would love to see a collaboration between Mankiw and Sowell. Thomas is such a clear thinker and Mankiw clear expresser. It should not be a text book but for the millions and millions that get through High School, College and Graduate School, or never went to higher ed at all, and had no exposure to economics.
April 21, 2010, 1:14 pmLugosi says:
It’s not necessarily the case that Mankiw’s textbooks will fade away after he stops updating them. George Thomas’s “Calculus and Analytic Geometry” is now on its 11th Edition, four years after the death of its author–the “Thomas” name is a brand unto itself that they’ve chosen to continue using. A similar thing could happen with Mankiw, being released as “Mankiw’s Principles of Economics by So-and-so”.
On the other hand, I think writing Anti-Mankiw: the Book is kind of a waste of effort. If you want to change people’s perspectives on Mankiw, economics, or public policy, you need to express your own ideas in a clear and independent fashion, rather than a line-by-line critique expressed in coded leftist discourse. Consider Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, which seeks to deflate Hobbes’ arguments in Leviathan, but rather than a series of chapters beginning “Hobbes say….” and “Hobbes is wrong because….” like some Junior High English paper, he hopes to demonstrate their invalidity by from first principles.
April 23, 2010, 3:26 pmDanny Black says:
Why? There are plenty of things which could falsify Darwinian evolution at a stroke. Darwin even laid them out. I am sure there are plenty of things in economics that could falsify claims too.
April 27, 2010, 5:30 am