The Making of the Economy: A Phenomenology of Economic Science PDF
Preview The Making of the Economy: A Phenomenology of Economic Science
T h e M a k i n g o f T h e e c o n o M y The Making of The econoMy a Phenomenology of economic Science Till Düppe Lexington Books Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Lexington Books A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2011 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Düppe, Till, 1977– The making of the economy : a phenomenology of economic science / Till Düppe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-6419-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-6954-4 (electronic) 1. Economics—Philosophy. 2. Structuralism. I. Title. HB72.D74 2011 330.1—dc23 2011031011 ` ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Part I: Philosophy 23 1 Science and the Life-World 25 2 Formalism and How Economists Forgot the Life-World 45 3 Structuralism and How Economists Made the Economy 65 Part II: History 79 4 The Pre-History of the Economy: The Oikonomia 83 5 The Urstiftung of the Economy in the Seventeenth Century 101 6 The Battles for the Economy since 1848 123 7 The Diminishing Weight of Meaning of the Economy during the Socialist Calculation Debate 143 8 The Secret Engineering of the Free Economy during the Cold War 161 9 The Waning of the Economy Today 183 Conclusions 207 References 223 Index 237 — v — Preface Two decades ago, a book called The Making of an Economist appeared (1990). The authors, Arjo Klamer and David Colander, interviewed graduate students in economics from leading U.S. universities, showing how students were regularly frustrated with their studies. They could not live out their economic concerns in the discipline of economics. The book was a fine description of my experience as a young economics student in the 1990s. In response to Klamer and Colander’s work, as well as many other critiques of the intellectual culture in economics, the discipline has markedly changed during the last decades. It has changed to such an extent that David Colander became convinced that the discipline is back on track in being more eclectic about problems and less obsessed by deduction (2007). Arjo Klamer, who accompanied the PhD research preceding this book, has not given up skepti- cism, and began engaging in neighboring fields of economics. The Making of the Economy gives a third reply to the discontent about the discipline of economics. It can be read as a historical supplement arguing that the very idea of relevant economic knowledge might have been a misunder- standing all along. When going back in the past, we learn to see the current complaints about economics as a side effect of economists’ attempts to gain authority by intellectual reticence. The belief in that thing called the economy is the result of this intellectual reticence. — vii — introduction In trying to understand the nature of economic discourse and the role that science plays in it, the Flemish painting on the front cover pro- vides a first clue. It was painted by Marinus van Reymerswaele in 1542, and depicts three people negotiating about money: a well-fed man on the left, an old man at the bottom right, and a clerk in the center of the scene. The painter’s sympathies clearly lie on the side of the old man. With eyes opened wide, he looks up pleadingly at his adversary. He displays his empty pouch timidly, his shame and vulnerability laid bare. For him, seemingly down on his uppers, there is much at stake. The Yes or No that the scene will arrive at will perhaps determine whether he and his family will have their daily bread, whether tomorrow will be another frightening ordeal. The old man feels the gravity of the encounter deep under his skin, down to his brittle bones and empty stomach. He is completely at the mercy of his adversary’s mood. The old man in this image represents the pervasive motif of economic discourses: the urge for betterment, the necessity of the aid of others, the sense of immediate importance and relevance that most share when attending to economic conversations. The well-fed man on the left takes up the most space and dominates the scene. He looks down at the old man with a contemptuous smile and casu- ally guards the piece of paper in his hand, equivocating teasingly. Strictly speaking, he is the only one with any agency in the scene. He decides. He exerts power. Disturbingly, the moment of the encounter appears rather inconsequential to him. Other needy people are probably waiting in line. — 1 —
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