by From Asad Zaman and RWER issue 85 The methodology and ideology of modern economics are built into the frameworks of educational methods, and absorbed by students without any explicit discussion. In particular, the logical positivist philosophy is a deadly poison which I ingested during my Ph.D. training at the Economics Department in Stanford in the late 1970s. It took me years and years to undo these effects. Positivism uses clever arguments to make you deny what you feel in your bones to be true, and make you believe what your heart says must be false – for example our supposed knowledge of subjective probabilities of unknown events. The roots of the problem go back to the famous Cartesian argument that “I think therefore I am”. Although it is clever piece of logic, it has a deadly
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from Asad Zaman and RWER issue 85
The methodology and ideology of modern economics are built into the frameworks of educational methods, and absorbed by students without any explicit discussion. In particular, the logical positivist philosophy is a deadly poison which I ingested during my Ph.D. training at the Economics Department in Stanford in the late 1970s. It took me years and years to undo these effects. Positivism uses clever arguments to make you deny what you feel in your bones to be true, and make you believe what your heart says must be false – for example our supposed knowledge of subjective probabilities of unknown events.
The roots of the problem go back to the famous Cartesian argument that “I think therefore I am”. Although it is clever piece of logic, it has a deadly effect. I know that I am alive because I can feel the blood flowing in my veins, the tingling of my skin, and a thousand other bodily sensations. “I feel therefore I am”. Denying this experience as a valid source of knowledge reduces me to a brain floating in a vat, which is exactly what logical positivism entails. In fact, despite Descartes, it is impossible to reason our way to certainty. We can only create an illusion of certainty. Descartes’ argument is deeply flawed, and illustrates the weakness of human reason. When we formulate the concept of “I”, isn’t existence automatically part of this? Did I not exist when I was a baby, and was unable to formulate these thoughts? Do I blink out of existence when I go to sleep? If someone has a hard time grasping philosophical concepts, is his existence thereby of a lesser quality? This and many other difficulties make this argument incoherent.
Modern economics is much like this. It starts by making assumptions which are dramatically in conflict with everything we know about human behavior (and firm behavior) and applies mathematical reasoning to situations where it cannot be applied, quantifying the unquantifiable and coming to completely absurd and ridiculous conclusions. Nonetheless, speaking from personal experience, the brainwashing is powerful and effective. It is a slow and painful process to undo. I have often thought about launching a “Positivists Anonymous” club, to help others attempting the same transition, of unlearning positivism.
Based on my own experiences and difficulties in unlearning, and also the experiences of Keynes and many others who have unsuccessfully battered the gates of the citadel of neoclassical economics, I have come to the conclusion that this is a hopeless task. We do not expect to be able to convert the economists. This revolution will not be televised. Our only hope is to work on an external revolution – take the message to outsiders, not to economists. [Recent surveys show that despite the collapse and rejection of positivism in philosophy, economists continue to think in positivist terms.] Even among non-economists, the collateral damage done by positivism and by neo-liberal thinking, is immense. This article is a preliminary examination of the difficulties in making a paradigm shift; that is, I will not discuss the major second step of what an alternative paradigm could be, and how we could create and promote it. Awareness of these difficulties is necessary for those who attempt to launch a revolution, since we need to create converts to a new paradigm. Economists are hopeless as a target audience, but even non-economists will be tough nuts to crack if our message is radical. This is because economic frameworks have become widely accepted – witness the popularity of Freakonomics. Nonetheless, it seems necessary to make the effort to save humankind from impending catastrophe, not just on the environmental front, but on many others as well. read more