Review of Arjo Klamer’s Speaking of economics: how to get into the conversation

__Abstract__ Arjo Klamer wants to change the way we think about economics. He argues that economics is not a body of accumulated knowledge, a mirror of the economic world out there, or rhetoric (the art of persuasion), but rather a bunch of conversations. In his recent book, Speaking of economics (2007), he introduces the term conversation in order to show that this perspective helps us understand the practice of economics better

The Vienna circles: cultivating economic knowledge outside academia

__Abstract__ This article examines the intellectual scenery of interwar Vienna. It argues that its central institution was not academia, but rather the circles (‘Kreise’). The prominence of these circles can partly account for the creative outburst in the social sciences in interwar Vienna. The article also helps to explain the peculiar character of the knowledge produced in interwar Vienna which is just as much concerned with social and political issues as it is with more traditional scientific issues. The lack of formal institutions and the marginal position of the University of Vienna also had downsides. It caused uncertainty in terms of career prospects and professional identities, although the informal interaction within the circles full of rituals and alternative institutions could partly make up for this. The uncertain future for scholars ultimately contributed to the enormous wave of migration from Vienna, frequently even before the political situation became an acute threat

De Hersenscanner en de economische wetenschap

__Abstract__ Neuroeconomics is een nieuw veld, waarin inzichten uit de neurologie worden gebruikt voor het verklaren van economische keuzes. Als nieuw veld past het in een bredere beweging in de sociale wetenschappen waarin wordt gezocht naar biologische fundering voor de theorieen, zoals bijvoorbeeld in de evolutionaire psychologie. De conferentie ‘Neuroeconomics: Hype or Hope’ in Rotterdam, was georganiseerd om te kijken wat dit nieuwe veld te bieden heeft. Voor die gelegenheid waren wetenschapsfilosofen, economen en enkele psychologen bij elkaar gekomen in de Remonstrantse Kerk. Er was van allerlei aanwezig stevige kritiek op de nieuwe methode, maar laten we eerst eens kijken wat die methode te bieden heeft

Exemplary Goods: Exemplars as Judgment Devices

In this article the notion of exemplars is developed to study valuation processes. It argues that exemplary goods are an important ‘judgment device’ on markets of singular goods, which has so far been ignored in the literature. The article draws on Hannah Arendt’s theory of exemplars, as well as literature from the philosophy of science and psychology to construct the new concept. Exemplars are particular goods that become focal points in markets that facilitate the mutual coordination of consumers and producers. From these exemplars norms of quality emerge which are otherwise hard or impossible to explicate. These exemplars and the norms of quality which emerge from them help shape the expectations of both producers and consumers with regard to new goods that are introduced to the market. Two illustrative cases, on classic literature and hip-hop music, are presented to demonstrate the relevance of the concept

Emergent orders of worth

Market exchanges are widely believed to rely on an overlap of interest, this paper argues that many market exchanges actually rely on a broader agreement between buyer and seller. The broader agreement includes the moral justification of the exchange and the associated norms of propriety. To arrive at this broader agreement markets rely on systems of non-price coordination. These non-price coordination systems, or orders of worth as we call them, can be thought of as emergent orders just like the price system is an emergent order; they are sources of justification that can be drawn upon to warrant the worth of diverse artifacts and the legitimacy of trading them. We show that Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy offers conceptual means for analyzing the emergence of such orders. To make sense of the emergence and functioning on these orders we draw on Smith’s organon and link it with contemporary work in economic sociology by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. We demonstrate how our theoretical framework can further our understanding of justifying exchanges of contested goods with two illustrative cases: contemporary art and surrogate motherhood

Karl Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science

The real theme of the book is the contrast between the precise analytical philosophy of the Vienna Circle, and its turbulent political and social surroundings. It is also the story of how these philosophers seemed to retreat from the world, sometimes quite literally. The picture of Kurt Gödel at the end of the book, which shows the philosopher at just 65 pounds in the garden of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, suggests that he has indeed all but retreated from the world. It is also this tension that the book ultimately leaves underdeveloped, as if the only natural response to the‘demented times’ is to retreat into pure science and philosophy. That this need not be so, is clear from the actions of Otto Neurath, the most political member of the Circle. He is involved with the Bavarian socialist revolution just after WWI, is the driving force behind public education programs in Vienna, the one who opens a museum for visual statistics, and the driving force behind the pamphlet which launches the Vienna Circle as a social movement in favour of the scientific world-view. But it is precisely Neurath who is throughout the book treated with little sympathy if not outright disdain by Sigmund

Review of M. Bianchi’s and R. Patalano’s: Storytelling and Choice, Rounded Globe

Mark Blaug famously argued that the arts could be a fertile testing ground for economic theory, since it was there that many phenomena are more distinct than elsewhere in the economy. The quality of goods is more uncertain than elsewhere, motivational structures are more complex and the impact of technological change less uniform. Marina Bianchi and Roberta Patalano suggest that we should add the meaning of goods to that list in their charming free digital book _Storytelling and Choice._ [...]By making ‘newness’ into a psychological category, as the book does, we are in danger of forgetting that new cultural products are typically marketed as variations on existing (exemplary) goods. And by emphasizing personal stories central to the valuation of goods, we lose sight of the social aspect of stories, and meaning more generally. The social and institutional aspects of consumption are themes to which cultural economists have a lot to contribute, but this book does not quite deliver on these fronts

The Viennese students of Civilization

__Nederlandse Samenvatting__ De markt is bij uitstek de plek waar het individu vrij kan zijn. Dat is ook het standaardbeeld van het gedachtegoed van de Oostenrijkse School van de Economie. In zijn dissertatie ‘The Viennese students of Civilization: Humility, Culture and Economics in Interwar Vienna and Beyond’ betoogt Erwin Dekker dat die school, bekend van onder andere Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter en Carl Menger, vrijheid niet ziet als het ontbreken van beperkingen, maar als een culturele verworvenheid. Individuen kunnen alleen vrij zijn, zo betogen de Oostenrijkers, doordat er gedeelde normen en instituties zijn die de vrijheid mogelijk maken. De verzameling van normen en instituties is voor hen de beschaving. Die beschaving en haar instituties zoals markten kunnen alleen floreren als ze worden ondersteund door een bredere cultuur. Die steun brokkelt echter snel af gedurende het interbellum. De Weense studenten van de beschaving analyseren die ‘revolte’ tegen de beschaving, gevoed door het socialisme en het fascisme. Socialisten zijn er ten onrechte van overtuigd dat de economie te plannen, en de maatschappij maakbaar is. Aan de rechterzijde wordt er juist betoogd dat het juk van de beschaving te groot is en het individu beperkt. Daartegen ontwikkelen de Oostenrijkers hun visie van vrijheid en markten als culturele verworvenheden. Die verworvenheden zijn niet natuurlijk, noch te plannen, ze zijn de min of meer onbewuste uitkomst van menselijke interactie. Die visie ontstaat binnen de rijke Weense cultuur van het interbellum, die vooral plaatsheeft in de intellectuele kringen. In die levendige gesprekscultuur worden de Weense economen uitgedaagd om een betrokken en brede analyse te ontwikkelen. Wat dat betreft staan ze ver af van de moderne economen gericht op theoretische marktmodellen die vooral in gesprek zijn met andere academici. Zo bezien kan de Weense traditie ons nog veel leren, zeker in een tijd waarin de acceptatie van veel van onze culturele instituties verre van vanzelfsprekend is.In this dissertation it is argued that the scholars who are usually known under the banner Austrian Economists are better understood as the Viennese students of Civilization. By understanding the group of scholars, consisting of Carl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek among others, as Viennese students of Civilization we are better able to understand their unique contribution. Contrary to many economists - both then and now - the Viennese students of civilization consider the economy not as a self-regulating natural order, or a system which can be planned, but as cultural process. Just like language and law, markets emerge and develop from human interaction. When the Viennese conceive of the market as a cultural process it means for them that the market has important cultural effects and is sustained by what we could call a market culture. In this dissertation the cultural effects of the market are explored especially as they relate to restraint; the central element of civilization for the Viennese scholars. It is argued that restraint is considered the central feature of civilization by a wider group of Central European scholars including Freud, Malinowski and Elias. The Viennese students of civilization, especially Wieser, Mises and Hayek argue that they live in a particularly unrestrained age. This has fueled opposition to market and other cultural processes which are not rationally constructed. The acceptance and cultivation of the market comes at a cost they argue; this cost they call the ‘strain of civilization’. That cost is primarily the restraint of our innate instincts. Civilization requires the acceptance of certain norms, of individual responsibility, the acceptance of differences and inequality. This price to be paid is termed ‘the strain of civilization’. This price however is no longer accepted by social scientists who preach unrestrained rationalism. And it is no longer accepted by mass political movements such as socialism and fascism which promise they can relieve the people of this strain. Particularly during the interwar period the Viennese students of civilization feel that their civilization is in acute danger. They analyze this revolt, and their own role in this process. Initially their response is largely passive and accepting. This attitude is characteristic of a Viennese cultural trait known as ‘therapeutic nihilism’. The social scientist, or rather student, can study the large cultural processes, but they are outside his or her control. Stronger yet, the Viennese students believe that many of their contemporaries are under the illusion that they could predict the course of society, and ultimately of history. This outsider-perspective, however, is seriously challenged during the Interwar period, especially during the rise of fascism. The Viennese intellectuals increasingly realize that they bear a responsibility toward their culture, and they might even possibly have some influence on its fate. This puts them in an awkward position. Their work is becoming more political and idealistic, features which they had criticized in the work of others. Especially Hayek’s ‘The Road to Serfdom’ and Popper’s ‘The Open Society and its Enemies’ are examples of this tension; the tension between the realization of the limited power of the scholar, and the desire to defend a civilization under pressure. In their work they apologize to their colleagues for the political nature of their work, but they feel obliged to write this work, which they consider ‘their war effort’. Ultimately, although reluctantly, they engage in an attempt to draw up ideals and plans for the future. They regain some hope, in part because they no longer write for a Continental but for an Anglo-Saxon audience. It is also in this sense that Hayek and Popper are engaged in a new kind of liberalism, one that is resistant to mass political movements and the desire to throw off cultural restraints. This dissertation draws heavily on the cultural histories of fin-de-siècle and interwar Vienna. It shows similarities in the problems faced by artists, novelists, scientists and politicians in Vienna. Such similarities sometimes were sometimes incidental, but they also arose out of the interactions in the Viennese circles. In the partly overlapping circles broad intellectual conversations were stimulated and this greatly contributed to the creativity of the contributions emerging out of Vienna, especially during the interwar period. It is argued that the prominence of these circles partly accounts for the fact that the Viennese students of civilization crossed many interdisciplinary boundaries, and that their intellectual concerns were as much driven by social and political issues as it was by scientific concerns

On emancipators, engineers, and students

This paper presents an original conceptualization of the different attitudes economists have expressed toward their object of study. It distinguishes between a humanist and a scientist tradition in economics and argues that both stances can be combined with an active and a passive attitude. This results in four different positions or attitudes, that of the positive scientist (passive scientist), the social engineer (active scientist), the student (passive humanist) and the emancipator (active humanist). The paper explores the implications of the four positions and it argues that there are many threads within Austrian economics and Virigina Political Economy that point toward the attitude of the active humanist. As such it is an extension and a correction of the distinction drawn between the student and the scientist in my book _Viennese students of Civilization_ (2016). It is argued that the emancipator position has to explicitly engage with what Buchanan calls ‘might-bes’, that is hypothetical changes in rules, institutions, or human behavior, and as such has important links with the critical tradition on the left

Introduction to “The social theories of classical political economy and modern economic policy”

This is the first-ever English translation of an 1891 essay by Carl Menger published in the most important newspaper of the Habsburg Empire, the Neue Freie Presse. Menger writes the piece as a defense of classical political economy in general and of Adam Smith in particular, focusing on misinterpretations of Smith’s work by the Younger Historical School in Germany. The essay reveals that Menger saw himself as working in a liberal tradition going back to Smith and classical political economy, rather than as a marginalist revolutionary who broke with classical political economy. It is a rare instance where Menger, holding the chair of economic theory at the University of Vienna, publicly expresses recommendations on economic policy. The essay represents Smith and the other classical political economists as socially motivated scholars concerned with just reforms to benefit ordinary people. Menger argues that the classical political economists were inclined toward liberal reforms but were by no means rigid exponents of laissez-faire. The essay is preceded here by an introduction authored by the translators Erwin Dekker and Stefan Kolev