It seems to me that the real issue is not whether there is truth content to neoclassical economics but why neoclassical economists (but not just the neoclassicals!) are so reticent about challenging the flagrantly bogus stuff that abounds. My cynical guess is that it's a "professional courtesy". In other words, class triumphs over content. regards, Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/worksite.htm Response: Bingo! Karl Meninger once noted that the neurotic is one who builds castles in the sky and the psychotic is the one who moves in--and the shrink collects the rent. In the case of the neoclassicals, they have not only built--and dominated--the various theoretical castles in the sky of bourgeois economics, they have moved in and constructed policies built and implemented on neoclassical "principles" and it is the poor, marginalized and exploited who are paying the rent--paying in blood. As was pointed out in an earlier post (I apologize for not remembering who wrote it) but essentially as the neoclassical ultra-reductionism, axiomatics, hypothetico-deductivism, tautologies and contrived syllogisms have proved useless in analyzing and predicting even essential capitalist relations, categories and dynamics (where there is some sort of attempt to actually apply neoclassical principles and axioms), the answer by the World Bank and IMF et al has been "conditionality" meaning if the theory doesn't fit, analyze, predict the reality, then alter the reality to fit the theory (sort of like chopping off part of the foot to make the shoe fit instead of looking for another size shoe--but with even worse consequences). But it gets worse. for example, part of my obligation to my students is to ensure that they have adequate foundations and preparation for higher levels of study in economics (knowing full-well the scholar despotism and ideological brainwashing of neoclassicals and non-neoclassicals to which they are likely to be subject). I teach the neoclassical stuff as "pure gospel" and the students really believe I am a born-again neoclassical. Then after giving an honest exposition of some of the theory (from the writings of the real original and born-again neoclassicals themselves and not from my caricatures of neoclassicism) I then probe the theory: what happens to certainty in equilibria or even the concept of "equilibrium" when certain "exogenous" variables like tastes/preferences or expectations are endogenized through histeresis feedback etc?; what ideological purposes and interests are served by the assumed "givens" such as wealth/income inequality?; what ideological purposes and interests are served by simple aggregations (whole = simple sum of parts)and what are some of the problems in macro being nothing more than aggregated micros? Why the resistance and slow pace of modifying basic assumptions of NC that are patently bogus--from perfect to possible asymmetric info and factor mobility, from pure to bounded rationality, from maximizing to satisficing etc?; what happens when "capital" is viewed as a fundamental implicit and explicit relation of power and exploitation between capital and non-capital (labor)rather than a "thing"? What does it mean that only concepts that are "operationalizable" are worth consideration and what does "operationalizable" mean? How does the neoclassical view phenomena such as power, racism, sexism, ageism, ethnocentrism, imperialism, colonialism and on what basis are such phenomena assumed to be anecdotal and/or non-operationalizable and/or non-existent and/or "squishy" and not worth any consideration? Etc Etc. The problem is at the higher levels, they get the pure neoclassical shit again and if they remember any of the critiques or counter-questions, the students will likely be punished for daring to utter any of them because the profs at the higher levels all studied and/or sit at the feet of the true-believer Elders who also tolerate none of that "radical stuff" or critiques. then there is the problem of congitive dissonance where if there is a contradiction between fact and emotion, between fact and belief and/or belief and emotion there arises a potentially disturbing "dissonance" in need of resolution. for example, I am a "radical" but, I never bring up radical critiques, I do strict neoclassical stuff--perhaps applied to a social issue--and my dissertation disturbs no mainstream sensibilities. I quietly tell my self that I am not selling out but rather "infiltrating" the profession so that someday I'll get to teach what total horseshit all the neoclassical stuff is. Well, my dissertation passes and I am on my way to my first new job. Now, I still have to keep quiet to get my tenure so I do, again telling myself that I am a spy and a mole infiltrating the bourgeois apologists. Now I get my tenure, but still, Assistant Prof is way down the food chain I need to really get up there so again I keep quiet, publish in the "right journals", go to the "right conferences", hang out with the "right" Elders etc etc. Now I get up the food chain, having had nothing to do with real radical struggles, real radicals or real radical ideas (except in the closet) I now thing of my "stature in the overall profession"--becoming another John Roemer, a legend in my own--and hopefully others'--mind(s). But I've got a problem: Being radical has to do with what one does, on whose side one stands, on what one will not do under any circumstances, on what basis one writes what one writes, what is the audience for whom one is writing and what are the concrete applications and uses of what one writes or does. How do I explain a lifetime of whoring and toadying to the dominant "paradigms" and dominant powers-that-be while claiming to be a radical? Well, I can try a Roemer and say that I was not really whoring because neoclassical stuff is not all bourgeois with bourgeois rhetorical intention, there are techniques that can be separated out from the overall paradigm and used in socialist construction; that was what I have been doing all along, getting a position of influence and separating out the useful from the non-useful to arm the working class with those neoclassical techniques and perspectives that they desperately need for socialist construction. The dissonance is apparently resolved. Yeah, right. Jim Craven
