3 responses to Barkley's recent contribution to the ongoing "fact
vs. value" discussion.
1) According to philosopher W.V.O. Quine (I forget the cite but I
can retrieve it from home if anyone is interested), the "analytic vs.
synthetic" distinction is even murkier than Barkley suggests. In
terms of Barkley's example, knowing what the terms "2", "4", and "="
mean is irreducibly a function of experience, and therefore to some
degree synthetic.
2) Barkley adds
> Well, this gets us back to the problem of theory.
> CAn one use an axiomatic system without "believing" the
> axioms (say, neoclassical econ.)?
I'd say it depends on what role the axioms play in the analysis, and
what the goal of the analysis is. For example: it is often useful to
abstract from such things as "transaction cost", "bounded
rationality", and "disequilibrium processes". This is not realistic,
but should progressive economists necessarily object to the practice?
The fact that right-wing economists make such phenomena the focus of
their analyses suggests a negative answer. Or to put it another way:
wouldn't what is objectionable about capitalism still hold in a world
without these phenomena? If the answer, at least for some purposes,
is yes, why not assume them away and focus on the things that matter?
In this regard consider the following passage from Marx's _Resultate_:
"Classical economics regards the versatility of labour-power and the
fluidity of capital as axiomatic, and it is right to do so, since
this is the tendency of capitalist production which ruthlessly
enforces its will despite obstacles which are in any case largely of
its own making. At all events, in order to portray the laws of
political economy in their purity **we are ignoring these sources of
friction**..." (p. 1014, in the Penguin Classic Edition of Capital,
Vol. I; emphasis added)
Barkley closes with
> (Aside to gil s.:
> Are you trying to give credence to Jim's charges of your "capture
> by the dominant ideology" with that AER quote? > :-)).
I thought the quote captured nicely the Janus-facedness of modern
mainstream economics that has prompted so much recent discussion on
this net: in one face, increasingly prevalent explorations of
issues that matter, in this case the negative impact of inequality on
growth (so much for the old "equity vs. efficiency" tradeoff, at
least understood dynamically). In the other face, the explorations
are conducted within a paradigm that to some degree oinks loudly:
inequality hurts growth mainly because it retards enforcement of
property rights? Hmmm... Well, the empirical results are powerful
even if the theoretical interpretation of same is less than
compelling (which is not to suggest that it *isn't* also the case
that inequality retards the enforcement of property rights...this
being a potential...ahem...fact, that is...er....true whether or not
we (cough) value it or not (grimace).
Analytically *and* synthetically, Gil [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
