What Good Are Labels in Scientific Discourse?

|Peter Boettke|

When a fellow economist labels someone in the field it is usually because it serves as a short-hand for a set of arguments and beliefs, and/or area of orientation.  She is a labor economist, he works in development economics. Those are fields.  But she is an experimentalist, or he does behavioral economics.  Those are paradigmatic expressions.  This is the positive role of labels.

But there is also a negative role played by labels, and it is usually critics that deploy the labels to pigeon-hole a thinker.  He is a Keynesian, she is a Marxist, he is an old institutionalist, she is an Austrian, etc., etc.  In these instances, the critic is hoping that the label does the job of providing a short-cut path to dismisal of an alternative paradigm within economics.

The first thing that should be stressed in scientific/scholarly discourse is that those of us who have decided to work in scientific/scholarly field of economics (as opposed to the economic policy field and/or popularization of the discipline) want to contribute to ECONOMICS and to have the broadest impact possible on our peers.  We want to do good economics, and to see our papers published in the top journals in the profession and to be widely cited by other scientists/scholars within economics.  Obviously, very few thinkers in each generation succeed in this scientific/scholary endeavor.

Given the slightly out of sync perspective of both the contributors to, and readers of, Coordination Problem, let me stress that we want to do good economics, publish in the top journals, and be widely cited because (a) that means that the ideas that we so strongly believe are underrepresented in the current practice of economics are gaining wider acceptance, and (b) this is the only way that the scientific/scholarly agenda we are committed to pursuing will actually spread within the society in general.  In short, ideas which do not have scientific/scholarly credibility cannot in the long-run win the day in the policy world, or in the popular culture.  Dissident ideas must become "mainstream" if they are to cease to be critiques of the status quo, but come to define the status quo.

In my recent book, Living Economics: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (2012), I urge the reader to recognize the distinction between "mainline" and "mainstream" economics.  Mainline economics, I contend, is defined by the substantive propositions that have been held by economists from at least the time of Adam Smith.  In my characterization, those substantive propositions relate to the rational choice postulate, and the invisible hand proposition (and the reconciliation of rational choice and the invisible hand through instituitonal analysis).  This is what unites economic thinkers through time from David Hume and Adam Smith, to Mises, Hayek and Buchanan.  As Lord Acton once wrote, it is the traveling of the minds of the men who sit in the seat of Adam Smith that deserve serious attention.

On the other hand, mainstream economics I contend is a sociological designation, and refers to what is currently fashionable in the research and teaching of elite professional economists at any point in time.  Thus, the term mainstream does not reflect any one set of substantive propositions, but shifts constantly depending on what is the current state of the art among professional economists at the elite scientific/scholarly institutions.  Sometimes the mainline is the mainstream, but at other times it is not.  It is at this critical junctures when the mainstream deviates from the mainline, that labels become particularly important in aiding acts of intellectual entrepreneurship which attempt to bring the mainstream back into line with the mainline of economic thought.  A Property Rights School of Economics was needed in the 1950s and 1960s precisely because the institutionally antiseptic theory of the Samuelsonian neo-classical synthesis had turned a blind eye to the role that alternative institutional arrangement had on economic performance.  Public Choice Economics was similarly required to correct for the tendency of this institutionally antiseptic economics of post-WWII to treat economics policy as if it was done in a vacuum rather than emerging within the political process.  And, market process theory was needed because the general competitive equilibrium program had squeezed out of the analysis of the market economy the vital role played by the entrepreneur in initiating the dynamic adjustments that follow from arbitrage and also innovation.   None of these schools of economic thought are proposing anything unheard of in the history of mainline economics and political economy, but their active intervention in modern economic thought was necessitated by the failure of the then mainstream to remember the core teachings of mainline economics.  The novel theories of Property Rights Economics, Public Choice Economics, and Market Process Economics (novel that is if you never read Adam Smith), transformed economic thinking by the 1970s-1980s.  And these ideas took on even more significance in the 1990s after the empirical collapse of real-existing communist economies.

But the character of mainstream economics as Samuelsonian in form was never displaced.  Mainline ideas that could be readily adapted to the language of Samuelsonian economics had greater traction than those that did not easily fit into that form of scientific/scholarly argument.  Thus, we have a slightly separate debate that must be waged --- which has its own labels which must be understood.  And that is the debate underlying the claim to the mantle of science --- the deep waters of epistemology, methodology of economics, and the philosophy of science.  Methodology matters because it shapes not only the questions pursued by scientists/scholars, but even  more importantly determines what is considered a good answer to those questions.   Without a shift in perspective over what constitutes the scientific enterprise in economics, various teachings of the mainline of economic thought will be dismissed scientifically even as they get a nod to their wisdom and good sense.

In fact, I have used throughout scientific/scholarly, but in the modern methodology of economics the goal is to be rigorously scientific, the scholarly quest for human understanding is dismissed as insufficient.  Thus, the way that the mainstream understands the teachings of the mainline of economics is through an act of translation of the rational choice postulate and the invisible hand propsition into a language which would make those core teachings incomprehensible to the leading practitioners of mainline economics in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century.  Methodology matters.

But remember my point that we want to do Good Economics, and have as wide an impact on our scientific peers as possible.  Fidelity to a label should be the least of our concerns, but truth in economics should be the utmost of our concerns.  We need to think clearly, write clearly and speak clearly. And our thinking, writing and speaking should be about the mainline teachings of economics and political economy as passed down through the ages by the Scottish Enlightenment Moral Philosophers, the French Liberal Poltical Economists, the British Utilitarians, and the Austrian School Economists (and the subsequent development of economic thought in the second half of the 20th century that drew on these various traditions).  To accomplish this task of providing sound theory and clarity of exposition, we rely on exact theory (pure logic of action), institutionally contingent theory (comparative institutional analysis), and empirical analysis (history, policy applicaiton, statisitcal work, ethnography, etc.).  Each step in a complete social scientific analysis has different epistemological problems to be addressed and methodologies of analysis.  Confusion results when we fail to remember the distinctions and in the looseness of language blur the distinctions.  But that we need the skills of critical reasoning to do sound theorizing, and the skills of empirical analysis to do history should never be doubted.  The master economist and political economist does both theory and history.  

Mainline economists sought to produce sound argument (not just valid), and thus theory aligned with real world relevance.  The mainline economists from Smith to Hayek, did not produce free floating abstractions that were tested against momentary concretes.  That was the mistaken path that mainstream economics embarked upon in the second half of the 20th century and continues to plague the practice of economics to this day.  So if those of us who find the arguments of mainline economics persuasive want to impact the mainstream of economics and pull in the direction of the mainline teachings of economics and political economy we must engage in methodological debate.  We cannot ignore these issues. There is no such thing as philosophy free science, there is only science guided by an articulated and defended philosophy or science guided by an inarticulate and undefended philosophy.  We are, in short, in the same position that Mises and Hayek found themselves respectively in the 1920s and 1940s.  In order to do Good Economics (defined as advancing and refining our understanding of mainline economics --- rational choice; invisible hand; institutional analysis) and to persuade the mainstream practitioners of economics of the merits of this approach, we have to not just do economic analysis but to provide a robust methodological defense of our approach.   Methodology matters -- even if a preoccupation with methodology should never substitute for doing economics (both theory and history).

Fidelity to a label (especially one that opponents give you) should never be the issue, but fidelity to sound economic argument and careful empirical analysis should be.  The value of a label should be high only if it aids in that task, otherwise discard the label and focus on doing Good Economics.

Comments

[Russ Nelson]

Was it Mises or Hayek who said that there are no fields of economics; only good and bad economics?

[Greg Ransom]

Stop calling it 'methodology' -- exemplars of good & sound explanations vs failed and pathological explanations is the issues.

You won't win or even be heard if makin a "methodological" argument.

Compare sound explanations vs failed, pathological explanations.

Save the talk of 'methodology'.

Note well -- 'methodology" talk is at the base of the failed mainstream paradi -- assumptions derived from Mill & the postitivist.

The mainstream offers explanations & rejects the justificationist / demonstrative philosophical tradition.

[Greg Ransom]

The great scientists trail blazed new scientific problems and came up with new explanatory strategies.

And each one of them came to recognize that they have violated the fashionable "methodological" dictates that had recently been re-patched out of the ancient paradigm of 'science' inherited from the model of Euclidean geometry -- the paradigm which said that 'knowledge' / 'science' as justified belief via demonstrative procedure, i.e. 'knowledged'/'science' = demonstrative knowledge.

Well, Newton was well aware that his new explanatory procedure violated the demands of the fashionable view of 'rigorous science' -- so he started talking about 'hypothetical' knowledge and other such things.

Darwin, similarly, attempted to follow the methodological dictates of Whewell and others, attempting to follow the 'methodology' which demanded laws and deductions.

Darwin offered a new understanding of the explanatory problem paired with a powerful explanatory strategy -- and it didn't fit the Whewell explanatory dictates -- Darwin admitted that nothing could be proven in the way demanded and every attempt to stuff Darwin into a nomological-deductive frame has has failed, has vindicated Darwin and put the nomological-deductive methodological demand in disrepute.

Pete writes,

"in the modern methodology of economics the goal is to be rigorously scientific"

Guess what? Darwin hoped to be 'rigorously scientific' following the nomological deductive methodological dictates of Whewell -- and he FAIL. Instead of being 'rigorously scientific' Darwin was ACTUALLY scientific in conceiving an explanatory problem paired with a new explanatory strategy -- 'rigorous science' be damned.

Newton did THE SAME THING.

In fact, if you know your stuff, you know that this misbegotten attempt by the 'mainstream' to be 'rigorously scientific' demonstratively doesn't derive from the actual practice of real science -- the goal of the 'mainstream' actually is to toe the line on a falsified and pathological philosophical image of 'science'.

Powerful and sound explanations are good science -- and they add to human understanding. And being 'rigorously scientific' according to the fake science demands derived ultimately from the Euclidean paradigm of 'demonstrative', 'justified' knowledge is not way to produce genuine science. Ask Newton. Or Darwin.

[Greg Ransom]

"Was it Mises or Hayek who said that there are no fields of economics; only good and bad economics."

It was Friedman.

Note well. If we use labels, Friedman was an Austrian economist. Read the opening chapters of _Free to Choose_. It's pure Hayek. Price signals and everything. A complete rejection of the formalist paradigm. And note well. Friedman's key texts in his graduate price theory class were 1) Marshall and 2) Hayek's _The Use of Knowledge in Society_.

[Barkley Rosser]

For the record, I claim property rights to being the first to argue that "mainstream" is a sociological category, or better or worse. I think Pete knows this, :-).

[Daniel Kuehn]

I am going to meld Barkley and Greg (insofar as Greg is channeling Kuhn in his own "all the rest of you guys are doing it wrong" way).

For Kuhn, the social form of the scientific community had an important function. At no point in time was it perfect, of course, but the process was functional in the sense that functionalists use the word.

If we accept that, then the fact that the mainstream is a sociological category shouldn't mean that it's just a sociological category. In science, recognition of the importance consensus and argument from authority are two quite different things. And what is the mainstream if not a consensus at a point in time?

I just think it's important to remember that these terms themselves are contested. It's easy enough to say that we should be doing Smithian economics. You won't get much dissent on that. But not everyone is going to agree with Peter that the second half of the twentieth century wandered off from Smith.

And on a more general point: if you make too much of a habit of proclaiming that people aren't doing "good economics" the people you are talking about that think they are doing "good economics" and being perfectly accepting of Smith aren't going to be very interested in talking to you after a while. I only mention this because it has implications for your plans to have a voice among economists writ large.

[Rafe Champion]

Taking Daniel's point, we need to look for common ground to maintain contact with other schools of thought or they will switch off.

On the philosophical and methodological front, if you think these things matter then something really has to be done about academic philosophy. If the kind of Aristotelian/Austrian realism that is being promulgated by Barry Smith can stage a revival in the philosophy of science amidst the wasteland generated by the positivist/empiricists and then Kuhn and Lakatos this will be a huge boost for good/Austrian economics.

It is sad to see how thirty years of work in the sub-speciality of philosophy and methodology of economics has produced so little to help the working economist.

[Greg Ransom]

Sorry, make that:

The _mainline_ offers explanations & rejects the justificationist / demonstrative paradigm.

[Allan Walstad]

"...floating abstractions that were tested against momentary concretes. "

Well put.

There's a limit to how much I'd worry about getting a hearing or somehow persuading prominent mainstream figures. What counts is inspiring the young. Nor would I concern myself with reaching for the mantle of "science." What, after all, is "science?" Philosophical attempts to define it always get chewed up by philosophical criticism, leading pretty much nowhere. I would just leave the term to refer to the natural sciences, allowing for the fact that different people may place the exact boundary in somewhat different places without thereby destroying the utility of the term.

[Roger Koppl]

Are you responding to George's "Advice to Young Austrians," Pete? I think he is right, of course, that your argument should hold up with or with out labels. But he does seem to suggest a sort of stealth strategy, which seems off to me.

[McKinney]

Seems to me that the only disagreement between mainstream and Austrian is business cycle theory. Micro and most macro outside of cycle theory is the same. So if Austrian economists want to avoid cycle theory there is no problem with being mainstream.

On cycle theory, the problems facing classical economists were the same. Solow's notes in his book on the classical economists that Ricarco et al insisted on analyzing comparative statics while the critics were doing dynamics. As a result, the two talked past each other.

The same is true of the critiques of Hayek's Ricardo Effect. See Moss and Vaughn "Hayek's Ricardo effect: a second look" in History of Political Economy, 18:4 1986.

On cycle theory, mainstream either ignores time and assumes either adjustments are simultaneous or jumps to the very long run, which as Keynes wrote tells us that after the storm the sea is calm.

In addition to time, mainstream ignores capital in its cycle theory.

As with the clasical economists and Hayek's critics, we will never persuade them to abandon their methods. But we can demonstrate the differences in assumptions to young people and let them choose which assumptions are the more realistic.

[Mikejhon]

It’s nice that desert investment brokers decided to help a medical marijuana firm . That’s good news.

[Niko]

I've been reading lately a lot of mainstream economics, especially Acemoglu and Andrei Shleifer. I must honestly say WTF!! Economics as a science is dead ...

When those guys chose 20 most influential papers from AER and the latest one was published in 1981 there was a lot of chatter about those guys being old and choosing among friends, but now I really think there wasn't anything worth mentioning after that, in spite of AER having more pages (over 600 in the last issue!!).

So what we have now in mainstream and mainline economics is a lot of noise. How do you think you will get heard?

[Gavin Kennedy]

Peter
Out of courtesy to you I report that I commented on aspects of your piece on www.adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.co.uk - it is too long to post as a comment here.
Gavin Kennedy

[Roger Koppl]

FWIW, Pete, I agree that methodology matters. It's a bit like metaphysics: when you banish metaphysics you are really just sending it underground where it is not subject to criticism. Similarly, banishing methodology just drives it underground. From its underground lair methodology still influences science, but is not subject to critical examination.

[McKinney]

Roger, exactly! There are two types of debaters - those who bare their assumptions and those who pretend they have no assumptions and are just mechanical interpreters of the data.