I wrote:>>It's sad that theoretical terms and concepts have been reduced to being interpreted as mere rhetoric, following Deidre McCloskey's lead to treat all economics and political economics as works of literature and rhetoric. (The relevant definitions from the on-line "hyperdictionary" are: (1) loud and confused and empty talk; "mere rhetoric"; (2) high flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation; (3) using language effectively to please or persuade.)
>>If theory is rejected as rhetoric, what do we have left? Empiricism?<< Ian writes:>Well, the term mere rhetoric applied to itself creates problems for those who want to denigrate mere rhetoric, no?< Likely so. >One need not subscribe to DM's thinking on rhetoric to understand that there is a lot of rhetoric in economic discourse.< Right. >Who gets to determine what counts as confused and empty talk when there are multiple interpretations of events, institutions, idioms etc.?< _Everyone_ gets to determine this (if they're interested in doing so, of course). Simply ask whether or not the theory in question is logical, non-tautological, has some empirical referents, etc. There is no reason why there should be some elite of self-appointed theorists who do this kind of analysis. >To denigrate rhetoric is self-defeating and, perhaps worse, serves as an example of ineloquent rhetoric.< Of course. My point was to get beyond the "that's rhetoric, so let's ignore it" mentality that's so common these days. (It's a version of anti-intellectualism.) >Marxists would do well to examine more carefully the uses of synecdoche, metonymy, metaphor and other rhetorical practices in KM's work;< Right. That's what I do a lot of. For example, much of CAPITAL, volume I involves synecdoche. "Moneybags" -- who later in the book morphs into the representative capitalist -- represents a synecdoche for the capitalist class as a whole. Or put another way, in most of the volume, Marx abstracts from the heterogeneity of the capitalist class (and the competition amongst capitals) in order to focus on the main class relation in the society he's studying. (He also abstracts from the heterogeneity of workers and competition within the working class. In later volumes, the treatment of the capitalist class becomes more concrete. As Mike Lebowitz argues, the working class never gets that treatment in the Big 3 Volumes.) Metonymy plays a less important role in Marx's theorizing, but _as in all theories_, metaphor is extremely important if not the essence of theorizing itself. Most economists -- especially those of the orthodox school -- miss the point that all theory is by its very nature metaphorical (or involves similes). (They're poets and don't know it.) To reject metaphor, therefore, is to reject theory. The key point is to make sure that the metaphor is internally consistent (makes sense in its own terms) and has a better correspondence with perceived empirical reality than do competing metaphors. Thinking by its very nature involves metaphors, so to give up metaphors entirely is to give up thinking. >the hair-splitting over the various formalizations of his later work have outlived their usefulness to those not in the academy. That is not to denigrate the careful and excellent work of those who have formalized those aspects of his work that were formalizable.< I wasn't advocating formalism. It has its place, but given its metaphorical nature, that place is not on a pedestal as in much of orthodox economics and the types of Marxian political economy that ape the orthodoxy (e.g., Roemer in his Marxist period). JD
