主流经济学正面临着激进的改革运动，国内垃圾的主流经济学还在蒙骗大众
主流经济学正面临着激进的改革运动，国内垃圾的主流经济学还在蒙骗大众——yuweiyuwei
中国经济学发展的西方主流化遭遇重大质疑
南开大学经济学院教授、博士生导师 贾 根 良
内容提要："经济学改革国际运动"的兴起标志着"现代经济学"的发展遇到了自大萧条以来最严重的危机。这场运动对西方国家经济学教学和研究的现状进行了批判, 它对中国 经济学发展的西方主流化趋势不啻当头棒喝，中国经济学发展的方向需要重新反思。笔者认为，科学的真正精神是多元论的，新古典经济学无疑是现代经济学的重要组成部分，不能完全被放弃，但它许多严重的缺陷和"科学性"的多少长期得不到讨论，其霸权地位也已对学术自由造成了严重的威胁，这是战后美欧经济学发展的重要教训，我们不应重蹈覆辙。现在，我们应该认真研究这场国际运动所提出的问题，放弃中国经济学发展的新古典主流化和数学形式化这种取向，采取渐进的和试错的改革办法，兼收并蓄，走出一条具有中国特色的经济学教育与发展之路。
关键词："经济学改革国际运动" 现代经济学 中国经济学
Post- autistic Economics Movement Modern Economics Chinese Economics
正当中国经济学的发展加速西方主流化之时，2000年7月，由于法国经济学学生的请愿，一种抗议西方主流经济学统治地位的国际运动已悄然兴起，其矛头直接指向脱离现实和数学形式化的新古典经济学。这种被称作"post- autistic economics[2] "的运动目前正方兴未艾，有可能颠覆新古典主流在西方经济学界的霸权地位，本文暂时把它译作"经济学改革国际运动"。论文首先介绍这种经济学改革国际运动的简史，其次，为读者理解这种运动提供背景分析，然后就这种改革运动对中国经济学发展的意义做出简要的评论。
一、"经济学改革国际运动"的兴起[3]
"我向思考（autistic）"的特点是与世界构成了歪曲的关系，我向思考的人没有能力与其他人交流，它是离群索居的和自我封闭的思索，这也是现代经济学的症状，现代新古典经济学脱离现实，集中于自身的智力体操的游戏之中，这是一种目前被称作"post- autistic economics "的新运动对其做出的诊断。这种运动开始于2000年7月，当时法国一群学经济学的学生在因特网上发表了一封对他们教授的请愿书。请愿书反对目前经济学教学中所流行的状态：没有控制的使用数学，数学本身已成为一种目标；新古典理论及其方法在课程表中居压倒性的支配地位；武断的教学方式，不允许批判性的和反思性的思考。法国学生呼吁结束这种状态，他们提出，经济学要面向经验的和具体的经济现实，采用科学的而不是科学主义的态度，坚持经济学方法的多元论。为了从离群索居的经济学思考和对社会不负责任的状态中拯救经济学，他们呼吁经济学教授们发动改革。
在两周内，学生的请愿得到了许多人的签名，其中不少来自法国最有声望的大学。7月21日，法国Le Monde 报道了这个事件，并对学生们呼唤改革的要求发表了同情的长篇评论。其它法国报纸、杂志、电视和电台也对此做了报道。7月底，一些教授发动了他们自己的请愿，明确地支持改革的要求，并做了进一步的分析，教授们的请愿书也呼吁进行公开的争论。在这种情况下，法国教育部部长Jack Lang宣布，他要非常严肃地对待这些不满，建立一个委员会对此进行调查。Jack Lang任命著名经济学家Paul Fitoussi 担任调查委员会主席，责令他在一年之内提交研究报告。
2000年9月，《post- autistic经济学通讯》的电子出版物在英国开始发行，它谈到了在法国发生的事件，鼓励人们了解并参与其中。这很快就在学生、助教和教授们之间传播开来了。10月份，到第二期发行时，《post- autistic经济学通讯》的订户已发展到36个国家。
从一开始，新古典主流经济学对"post- autistic经济学"运动采取了漠视的态度。然而，很快对新运动的批评之声就出现了。1987年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者索罗10月份在Le Monde上发表了一篇长篇论文，他写到，post- autistic经济学对新古典的保留意见是可以理解的，但新古典主义的支持者完全意识到了这些缺点，正统和异端的目标最终都是一样的：致力于发展政治经济学中可以使用的可靠工具。然而，主流的这种主动却产生了适得其反的结果。有观察者认为，索罗的文章是帝国主义的和恩赐态度的，它是对学生们的请求冷嘲热讽的歪曲。
法国学生继续组织公众争论，在整个2000年至2001年学年中，法国的许多大学组织了这些问题的讨论。有关这个运动的文章继续在法国出版物上出现，2001年2月，法国杂志L"economie politique用一期的篇幅刊载了这方面的争论文章。在法国国家出版物上发表的文章和访谈中，法国许多著名经济学家站到了学生的一边，200多名法国经济学家签名支持学生们的请愿。
2000年11月，为了对post- autistic经济学改革运动进行国际指导，http://www.paecon.net/网站创立，《post- autistic经济学通讯》在这个网站上为公众讨论建立了一个持久的平台。现在，《post- autistic经济学通讯》已变成可以免费订阅的因特网杂志，并已改名为《post- autistic经济学评论》，目前的订户已发展到一百二十多个国家。2000年12月，post- autistic经济学运动法国学生领导人参加了在英国召开的"经济学的未来"国际会议，这激发了该项运动在法国和世界其它地方之间的联系。大约在同时，美国经济学家加尔布雷思飞抵法国会见了这个新运动的学生和学术界领导人。2001年1月，加尔布雷思在《后我向思考经济学通讯》第四期上反驳了索罗的看法，他指出，经济学的许多核心理论命题需要争论。
2001年7月，剑桥大学27名博士生发表了"开放经济学"的公开信，到2002年4月，在公开信上的签名已超过600名。2001年8月，在美国堪萨斯城密苏里大学，来自二十多个国家的75名学生、研究人员和教授对经济学状态进行了为期一周的谈论，其结果是以类似的方式，发表了"堪萨斯城建议"，请求世界各地的经济学家们克服有关人类行为的僵化观念，在研究中认真考虑文化、历史和方法论问题，开展跨学科对话。2001年9月，由Fitoussi担任主席的调查委员会发表了他们的最终报告。法国学生请愿活动的组织者之一Gilles Raveaud评论说，这个报告虽然没有满足某些人希望提供替代性的经济学的要求，但如果它被贯彻的话，法国大学的经济学教学将与现在会有很大的不同，在对这个报告持有保留意见的同时，他希望经济学教师们与他们一起支持这个报告，使之得到真正的执行[4]。
在post- autistic经济学改革国际运动的发展过程中，一些国家的报刊进行了报道和评论，下面就是http://www.paecon.net/网站摘录的一些评论："由于学生们的首创精神，就目前经济学所面临危机的原因，一场争论最终被发动了"（法国Le Monde），"革命的烈火变得是如此严重，以致于法国教育部部长Jack Lang已任命一个委员会进行调查"（Melboume Age），"post- autistic经济学运动像野火一样已在法国和西班牙的学生们中间蔓延，在许多国家之间的通信日益增加"（美国《科学与社会》），"在法国，反对无节制的形式化经济学课程的post- autistic经济学运动已经爆发，这个运动很快扩散到西班牙，越过欧洲大陆，正进入英国"（英国Guardian）,"战线已经拉开，http://www.paecon.net/网站是一个采取更多行动的场景"（《澳大利亚人》，"post- autistic经济学运动，一个反对传统经济学的学术运动，很快在发展中经济和发达经济中对这个沉闷科学不满的实践者中间赢得了支持"（美国《外交政策》）。现在，post- autistic经济学改革国际运动已在德国、法国、西班牙、葡萄牙和土尔其等许多国家建立了网站。《经济学的危机：post- autistic经济学运动最初600天》是一本汇集这个运动早期材料的新书，2003年上半年将由Edward Elgar 出版社发行，我们已与该出版社达成协议，一旦英文版本编辑完毕，我们就考虑中文版在中国出版的事宜。
二、历史背景分析
冰冻三尺，非一日之寒，新古典经济学统治地位的形成经历了一个漫长的演进过程。为了理解post- autistic经济学改革国际运动，我们有必要简要地回顾经济思想发展的历史，正如20世纪初在物理学革命中曾发挥重要作用的数学物理学家彭加勒所指出的，若想预见数学的未来，正确的方法是研究它的历史和现状。对经济学来说，这种情况更为迫切，因为新古典主流经济学受实证主义科学哲学和经济学数学形式化所支配，割断了理论与概念发展史之间的内在联系，不仅使经济思想史上一些非正统学派原创性的思想处于未发展的状态之中，而且，对新古典经济学来说，只有割断历史，才能巩固其统治地位。现在，美国许多著名的大学都已取消经济思想史的课程。钱颖一先生2002年在南开大学的一次讲演中，也好心的和郑重地劝告准备到美国留学的同学，在申请书中千万不要提到亚当&＃8226；斯密等经济思想史中的人物，因为如果你谈到这些，美国大学的教授就会认为你的知识结构非常陈旧。
让我们首先从新古典经济学的诞生时期谈起。十九世纪中叶，古典经济学开始陷于危机，它受到了来自各方面的批判，到19世纪下半叶，出现了学派林立的局面，主要有历史学派、马克思学派、老制度学派、奥地利学派和目前占统治地位的新古典学派，目前的许多重要经济思想都可以在这些学派中找到其渊源。从十九世纪中叶到20世纪30年代新古典经济学谋求主流地位之前，对当时经济学教育影响最大的有历史学派、老制度学派和新古典学派，所以，我们在这里只是简短地说明这三个学派当时的情况。
1843年，罗雪尔出版的《历史方法的国民经济学讲义大纲》标志着历史学派的诞生。历史学派在德国的影响几乎达一个世纪之久，它在当时的影响犹如今日的新古典学派，那时的北欧和美国一些有影响的经济学学者都曾留学德国，只是回国后才另辟蹊径。例如，奥地利学派的第二代代表人物维塞尔和庞巴维克、瑞典学派的卡塞尔等都曾赴德国留学。又如，美国南北战争结束后，美国大学的经济学讲座绝大部分是由德国留学归来的青年学者担任，1885年成立的美国经济学学会，就是由一些留学德国返美的经济学学者仿照德国"社会政策协会"的模式而创建的。在美国，继德国历史学派对当时的经济学产生很大影响之后，20世纪30年代以前美国的主流经济学是凡勃伦等所创建的老制度学派。有关老制度学派在当时的影响，我们只举美国老制度学派三个代表人物的例子就足以说明：美国400多名经济学家曾联名要求凡勃伦出任美国经济学学会会长，但被凡勃伦拒绝了；康芒斯曾担任美国货币协会会长，对美国联储和社会保障制度的建立起过重要作用；米切尔创建美国全国经济研究局，为经济周期、宏观经济以及后来库兹涅茨等人所研究的国民收入帐户及其核算奠定了基础。
新古典学派是通过十九世纪70年代的"边际革命"所创建起来的。虽说门格尔、瓦尔拉和杰文斯是边际革命的共同发起者，但在那时许多思想已不是新的了，有四位先驱者已作了开拓性的研究，这就是屠能、古尔诺、杜布衣和戈森，但他们的著作当时并未引起人们的注意，只是后来人们才追认了他们的贡献，如古尔诺和戈森的著作都是经杰文斯（和瓦尔拉）发现并加以赞扬，才引起英、美经济学界越来越广泛注意的。戈森的命运尤其不佳，在边际效用学说方面，他不仅是一位先驱者，而且，在他的著作中几乎论述了后来奥、英、法等国边际革命所使用的全部重要概念，但他在世时的著作生涯却是很不幸的，前后花了二十年时间写成的《论人类交换规律的发展》在1854年出版后，几乎没有销路，不得不在他临死前不久自行收回[5]。这些情况说明了现在占统治地位的新古典学派在它的诞生时期也饱受了冷漠和歧视，但它的处境要远远好于今日经济学的新思想和异端经济学，这也从反面证明了目前的经济学改革运动所倡导的多元论新精神是多么的重要。
在十九世纪末，由门格尔、瓦尔拉和杰文斯发起的边际革命，经过马歇尔的整理和精练，才以其较完备的形态而出现，1890年马歇尔刊行的《经济学原理》影响达30年之久。有关新古典经济学在这段时间的历史，我所了解的三个史实还需要告诉读者。第一个是马歇尔学术研究的最终目标是经济生物学（即今天我们所说的演化经济学），但他的一生却是在为他不以为然的理论进行阐扬和精化，到后来由于精力衰微，才不得不放弃更为他所崇尚的目标，其心情可想而知。第二个是与瓦尔拉和杰文斯不同，在门格尔看来，对于理解复杂的人类行为来说，数学方法完全不能获得在他手中边际革命所试图揭示的经济现象的实质，这是奥地利学派迄今仍占统治地位的观点。但自庞巴维克开始，门格尔的原创性贡献逐渐被遗忘了，以至于20世纪30年代在奥地利出现了背叛门格尔遗产的数学形式化革命的插曲[6]。第三个是作为边际革命意识最强烈的瓦尔拉（1834——1910）终身都在寻找他的理论的支持者，但效果不大，在法国没有找到继承者，最后总算由意大利人帕累托继承了他的衣钵，其理论在逝世后约十年才得到重视，新古典经济学家甚至把他誉为极伟大的经济学家。
在当时，新古典经济学的产生是它盲目地崇拜经典物理学成就滞后影响的产物，而现在它对现代物理学所蕴涵的哲学意义仍几乎毫无所知。正如杰奥尔杰斯库—罗金指出的，"正当杰文斯和瓦尔拉开始为现代经济学奠基时，物理学一场惊人的革命扫荡了自然科学和哲学中的机械论教条。奇怪的是，‘效用和自私自利的力学"的建筑师，甚至是晚近的模型设计师，看来都没有及时地觉察到这种没落。"[7] 但为什么新古典经济学的地位在20世纪30年代以后却迅速上升呢？除了社会政治原因外，主要就是实证主义科学哲学的巨大影响。经济学的数学形式化首先在奥地利登场，这与实证主义科学哲学中影响最大的维也纳学派有很大关系。在20世纪30年代以后，除了新古典经济学以外，其他所有经济学流派都被逐渐地边缘化了。特别是二战一结束，新古典经济学获取主流地位的步伐大大加快了。在实证主义科学哲学强大威力的影响下，在把经济学建成如物理学那样精密科学的目标下，萨缪尔森1947年出版的《经济分析的基础》在经济学界获得了崇高的理论地位，经济学强调数学的重要性日见增强，以致于目前在西方已造成人们普遍地认为，最好的博士毕业论文是建立数学模型并用数量资料加以检验，学术讨论的开始就是数学模型，至于数学模型中那些假定的经济学含义是没有必要讨论的，经济学是在效用最大化条件下理性选择的科学[8]，凡是不符合这个定义的就不是经济学。
在数学形式化日益普遍的今天，假如历史上像斯密、马克思、熊彼特等这样伟大的经济学家现在读博士的话，就不会被认为是好学生，恐怕有可能毕不了业。斯密他们如果今天参加美国大学绝大多数经济学讨论会的话，这些经济学高手们就会不耐烦地问，你的模型在那？如果斯密他们拿不出，在讨论会参加者异样的眼光下，斯密他们就会感受到无地自容的压力，惊叹自己的经济学太落后了。据认为，这就是中国经济学界目前所遇到的问题。按照近几年这种流行的思维，斯密他们在会议结束后，一回到家就会想到，如果再不改变，恐怕他们连讨论会的门槛都不会让我进了，遂提出了"经济学要与国际接轨"的口号，要实现经济学的"现代化、国际化和标准化"。试想，斯密、马克思和熊彼特会这样做吗？我想他们不会食洋不化。
由于新古典主流对经济学的统治，在美国"以致于达到很难发现不追随正统宗旨的研究生教育项目。实际上，美国大学的所有经济学系都已被经济学是什么、应该怎样研究经济学的单一观点所控制，通常伴随着深奥的数学技术，（自由）市场理论的论证已成为该专业绝对必需的东西，深奥的证明而不是社会目标赢得了更响亮的掌声。在美国所确立的这种专业取向，经过某种时滞，正扩散到欧洲和日本，在全球范围内造成了各种丰富的经济思想传统的生存危机。造成这种状况的原因部分来自于这种事实：许多经济学家在美国受到训练，然后带着他们所吸收的新古典精神，回到本国的大学和研究中心。追随美国模式，这些国家在专业人员的招募、提升、薪金和奖赏等方面正转向新古典的和数量的理论标准。虽然这并没有完全被完成，但在欧洲和亚洲，同质化和方法论的统一的相同过程正在稳步的被推进。"[9] 这在英国的剑桥大学是非常突出的，随着著名的非主流经济学家卡尔多、罗宾逊和斯拉法在20世纪80年代的逝世，到90年代，剑桥大学经济学系就已经处于主流的控制之下了。
在这种情况下，一些经济学家和社会科学家深切地感受到了新古典主流对经济学的单一统治所造成的危害，感受到它对学术自由的威胁，对目前的经济学状况非常担忧。因此，他们于1993年成立了经济学多元论国际联合会(ICAPE)。该联合会认为，在经济科学的理论和方法上都需要更大的多元化。多元论的新精神将推动各种不同方法的实践者开展更具有批判和建设性的对话。这种多元论将在竞争性的思想交流中强化科学研究的标准。新的多元论应该反映在科学争论、学术会议、专业杂志和经济学家的训练和雇佣等各个方面。经济学多元论国际联合会的目标是致力于促进信息交流和其他富有成果的合作。联合会成立大会宣称，经济学学科需要基本的改革，需要对经济行为更健康的各种跨学科的和其它方面的研究开放。
经济学多元论国际联合会目前有40个成员组织，这其中包括：演化经济学协会，新制度经济学国际协会，异端经济学协会，制度思想协会，社会经济学协会，社会和政治经济学协会，比利时——丹麦制度与政治经济学协会，东部经济学协会，欧洲经济思想史协会，德国政治经济学协会，国际熊彼特协会，生态经济学国际协会，女性主义经济学国际协会，新思想交流国际协会，凡勃伦国际协会，欧洲演化政治经济学国际协会，日本演化经济学协会，奥地利经济学发展协会，后凯恩斯经济学杂志，政治经济学协会等。经济学多元论国际联合会2003年6月将召开第一次国际会议，题目是"异端经济学的未来"，会议特别欢迎把异端经济学的各种流派整合起来的工作。
正是在这种国际大背景之下，2000年7月，首先发端于法国的 post- autistic经济学改革国际运动在欧洲爆发。虽然这个运动与经济学多元论国际联合会没有直接的关系，但它无疑是经济学多元论国际思潮的重要组成部分，其实质都是呼唤西方经济学界的"百花齐放百家争鸣"，结束新古典经济学的霸权地位。
三、"经济学改革国际运动"简短评论
在西方经济学界，许多人早就对目前的经济学状况非常不满，但由于经济学教学和研究体制的习惯和惯性，体制内通过正常渠道所传递的改革之声早已被置若罔闻了，杂志、书籍和学术会议上分散的批评之声也早已无法改变主流经济学脱离现实的这种状况。从整体上来说，西方国家的经济学发展已经锁定在劣等路径之中，它只有靠偶然的突发事件的冲击，并通过改革力量自我强化的正反馈才能加以改变，所以，post- autistic经济学改革国际运动的学生和教师们不得不采取请愿书和公开信这种极端的形式。星星之火，可以燎原，post- autistic经济学改革国际运动已点燃了这种火焰，目前已发展成了燎原之势。国外的媒体评论说，自大萧条以来，经济学从未遇到过如此严重的危机。
目前在《post- autistic经济学评论》上发表的文章对经济学的许多传统观念都提出了质疑，正在讨论经济学课程中有那些东西应该保留下来，并明确地提出发展一种更现实的经济学。毫无疑问，经济学的改革是一个渐进的过程，它需要很长的时间认真讨论、仔细审查并反复实验。在今后几年甚至十几年，经济学界将面临着并将经历着一种学术上的思想解放运动。
虽然我们可以预料，经济学改革的火焰不可能被扑灭，但它目前仍没有导致西方国家的经济学教学和研究体制发生实质性的改变，传统体制的强大惯性、思维习惯和既得利益不能被低估。所以，post- autistic经济学改革国际运动的实际效果最终有两种可能：一种是经济学教学的课程体系依然故我；另一种是有可能发生很大的变化，新古典经济学和数学的支配地位将被大大地削弱。前景是不确定的，但后一种的可能性较大，因为经济学需要根本性的改革，这种时间已等得太久了，对它不满的人数近十年来正呈指数般的增长。
与上述已潜伏了很久但最近才燃起的地下火焰相反，近几年来，我国经济学教育西方主流化的步伐明显地加快了。"经济学要与国际接轨"，"经济学要实现现代化、国际化和标准化"的声音不绝于耳；作为一名经济学教授，我也曾被谆谆教导，要像美国的经济学教授那样，培养学生"像经济学家那样思考"。然而，西方经济学界有那么多经济学流派，究竟和谁接轨？经济学家们可以大致上被分为两种类型，究竟要像那类经济学家那样思考？一类假定技术、制度、偏好和资源禀赋不变，在均衡框架下，研究理性经济人如何按照效用最大化原则，实现资源最优配置。这类经济学家采用了把偶然因素排除在外的决定论哲学观，坚持认为存在着适用于一切时间和地点的规律，演绎主义的、数学形式化建模的和预测的是其方法的特征。另一类则认为，技术、制度、偏好等都是处于变化之中的，这种变化的典型特征是非均衡过程，资源创造而非资源配置是经济学研究的核心，经济行为者是按照得失权衡而非效用最大化原则采取行动的，经济研究要特别注重时间和地点的差异，比较的、制度的、历史的和解释的是其方法的特征。
熟悉经济学说发展史的人都知道，长期以来，这两类经济学家构成了经济学研究的两大传统，前一种的典型代表就是新古典经济学，后一种则是反对新古典经济学的几乎所有异端经济学的共同特征，在笔者看来，它的典型代表就是今天正处于大发展前夜的演化经济学。在20世纪三、四十年代以前, 这两类经济学是以互补的方式得到发展的[10]，但到20世纪90年代，美欧国家所有的经济学系都已被新古典经济学所控制[11]。因此，按照笔者的理解，我们目前所谓经济学与国 际接轨的提法决不是指与异端经济学的某个流派接轨，所谓"像经济学家那样思考"也决不是意味着像演化经济学家那样思考。对流行的思维来说，所有这一切都意味着新古典范式和数学形式化的发展。在笔者看来，所谓国际化就是美国化，标准化就是数学化，现代化就是新古典化，这样概括不会有多大失真。
有人说，中国的运气总是不错，当我国的一些高级官员已订做好西服，准备到韩国学习"抓大放小"的经验时，当我们正在加速开放资本市场的步伐时，东亚金融危机爆发了，推行了几年的"抓大放小"的政策及时被放弃了，开放资本市场的计划被暂缓实行，这是中国的幸事。现在，正当中国经济学加速西方主流化的步伐时，经济学改革国际运动爆发了，那么，我们是否要放弃这种目标呢？英籍德国人奥地利学派著名经济学家拉什曼有句名言：不同的心智思考不同的事情，可能一些人甚至大多数人不同意我的看法：放弃这种目标又是中国的一件幸事。但大多数人可能会同意这种看法：我们应该放慢西方主流化的步伐，像post- autistic经济学改革国际运动的学生和教师们所倡议的那样，对经济学的基础和经济学教学的课程体系进行讨论，经过深入研究，渐进地改革经济学教育，走出我们自己的道路。如果是这样，我除了赞成和支持经济学改革国际运动的倡议外，下面就我国经济学的发展另外提出一些值得讨论的重大问题，并直率地公开我自己的观点。
第一，保护、鼓励和促成经济学教学和学术研究的多元化国内格局。20世纪30年代以来，在西方经济学的发展过程中，新古典经济学以实证主义科学哲学为武器，通过教学体系、研究组织、资源分配和奖励办法的单一化的制度化，对异端经济学大加围剿，使经济思想史上许多非正统学派原创性的思想长期处于未发展的状态之中，造成了今日主流经济学缺乏批判和反思性思考的局面，这是与生物多样性原理相违背的，它已造成了对经济学学术自由严重的破坏，造成了这种局面现在改变起来非常困难。我国经济学界尚未被西方主流经济学所支配，但存在着这种威胁，我们应该对此加以警惕，致力于创造一种多元化的科学文化。作为一种学术制度，多元论的科学氛围将使我们不得不宽容自己所不赞成的学说，我们还可以发现一些表面上对立的学说实际上是互补的。即使某些学说之间存在着真正的冲突，那也将如怀特海所说的，是机会而非灾难。多元化的科学文化将使具有真知灼见的经济理论脱颖而出，从而避免对教条理论的长期迷恋。只有这样，我们才能产生百花齐放百家争鸣的喜人局面，迎来中国经济学前所未有的大繁荣。
第二，注意引进异端经济学，关注欧洲各国在经济学研究上所取得的成就。这种作法至少有两种好处：一是获得我们原先所不知道的许多重要的经济理论；二是成为保护国内多元化经济学格局的重要手段。2000年我就在一篇论文中批评了我们引入西方经济学的缺陷，突出的表现就是对西方非主流经济学的研究非常薄弱，而主流经济学现已提不出解释经济现实的重大理论问题，它的许多创新是在异端经济学持久批评的刺激才得到发展的。创新往往是以异端的形式出现，特别是在非常规科学时期能活跃思维、解放思想，目前的经济学正处于这种时期，经济学改革国际运动所提出的"新"思想实际上大都是异端经济学早就持有的。
在西方经济学的引入上，我们所存在的另一明显的缺陷就是在地域上几乎完全关注于美国，而对欧洲经济学界半个世纪以来所取得的研究成果基本上视而不见，以致于造成了有的学者声称经济思想史上的历史学派在欧洲现已绝迹，但据我所知，恰恰相反，历史学派的思想自20世纪80年代以来在欧洲已经复兴。欧洲经济学界有很多非常好的经济思想，如国家创新体系这个概念就是由欧洲学者提出的，它对国家政策产生了重大影响。又如在知识经济和创新经济学的研究上，欧洲经济学界整体上要领先于美国。欧洲经济学界的经济学研究要比美国更关注于现实，异端经济学也更活跃，这就是为什么经济学改革国际运动首先爆发于欧洲的主要原因。
第三，理论经济学的发展要特别注重对经济学的科学哲学和文化基础展开研究和讨论。现在国内绝大多数经济学家所接受的科学哲学是波普的证伪主义，费里得曼的实证主义仍非常流行，正是这两者加强了新古典经济学的统治地位。20世纪80年代中期以来经济学方法论的许多重大进展很少有人进行深入研究，而这些进展对前两者都提出了质疑和批判。此外，许多学经济学的人不知道"科学主义"是何意，更不用说分清它与"科学"之间的根本性区别了。如果说大多数学经济学的人对经济学的文化基础没有任何兴趣是可以理解的，但对理论经济学家来说，这就是一个严重的缺陷了。正是因为这个原因，当社会科学其他领域的大多数人都知道现代主义、后现代主义和欧洲中心主义时，经济学界的许多人对这些名词是非常陌生的。当现代主义和欧洲中心主义在历史学、人类学和社会学中遭到很多批判时，它仍是支撑新古典经济学统治地位的文化基础。因此，对于理论经济学家来说，这方面的学习和再教育仍是非常有必要的。
第四，反对过分注重数学。西方经济学教育的经验说明，数学在经济学中没有限制地被使用已对经济学的进步造成了很大的危害，甚至是灾难。笔者并不反对数学在经济学中的应用，但反对它在经济学中的泛滥。经济学是一门社会科学，然而奇怪的是，学经济学的学生无须具备历史学、社会学和政治学方面的必备知识，但必须"精通"数学。大量论文充斥数学模型，很少关注现实，很少有经济思想的创新，这就是post- autistic经济学改革国际运动所批判的离群索居的经济学。从这个角度来看，2002年教育部规定，数学在经济学硕士生入学考试中所占分数等于四年所学经济学在考试中所占的分数，无疑将对经济学的数学形式化起到推波助澜的作用。我并不是建议立即就取消刚刚实施的大幅度提高数学比例的措施，而是希望重新评估数学在经济学中到底发挥了什么作用，研究它到底是不是经济学研究必备的工具。我们应有自己的判断，没有必要跟在西方国家的后面亦步亦趋，特别是数学在西方经济学界已造成弊大于利的情况下，我们更应三思而行。
第五，不迷信"诺贝尔经济学奖"[12]，只把它看作是衡量经济学研究水平和学术动态的一个参考指标。我的理由是：首先，与物理、化学和医学等自然科学方面的诺贝尔奖不同，经济学是不是一门科学目前还存在很大争议，所以它的"科学性"和公正性是不可以与自然科学方面的奖项同日而语的。其次，意识形态的影响很大，如新制度学派的科斯和诺思获奖与前苏联东欧的巨变不无关系。我对他们的获奖虽极为赞成，但也深知他们理论的缺陷。再次，"诺贝尔经济学奖"设立的最初动机是因为发起人认为，经济学由于数学化程度已很高，已变成了一门硬科学。从最初两年获奖的经济学家中可以看出这种倾向，只是后来才多样化了，但是否使用数学仍是评奖的重要指标。在某种程度上说，"诺贝尔经济学奖"对经济学的数学形式化也难辞其咎。最后，"诺贝尔经济学奖" 更多的关注的是技术层面的经济学研究，它只奖励了对经济思想的发展做出重大贡献的一小部分大师级的经济学家，而许多具有杰出思想但并不符合流行时尚的经济学家在世时不可能获奖，虽然后来的事实证明他们对经济学发展的贡献要远比在技术层面上获"诺奖"的经济学家重要的多。基于以上理由，我们没有必要迷信"诺奖"，中国经济学的发展也不以获取 "诺奖"为目标。
第六，探索中国经济学发展的新道路。中国经济学的发展有一个从模仿到创新的过程，但问题是模仿什么？模仿是采取单一的还是多重的路径？模仿是否有必要照搬西方国家的现行做法？发展经济学家认为，对发展中国家来说，单纯的模仿是没有出路的，只有创新才能后来居上。经济学的教育和发展也是如此。经济思想史的观察可以告诉我们，一种新型经济学的萌芽可以在主流经济学锁定非常严重的国度被发现，但它的成长和壮大很可能就要转移到经济发展非常迅速但经济学却"落后"的国家，正如十九世纪中叶的德国和20 世纪初的美国经济学史所呈现的那样。中国经济发展面临着许多前所未有的新挑战，它为中国经济学的发展提供了难得的机会，如果西方主流经济学墨守成规的话，而我们却不能不与时俱进，中国经济学界应有勇气抛弃经济学中的陈腐教条，正如党的"十六大"明确提出走新型工业化道路一样，根据我们的实际，探索经济学发展的新路子。因此，笔者希望有更多的人关注并研究经济学改革国际运动所提出的问题，关注并研究法国等国家所采取的经济学教育改革的措施，关注并研究经济学多元论国际思潮，兼收并蓄，采取渐进的和"试错的"方法改革中国经济学的教育和研究体制，为中国经济理论的创新营造良好的环境。
（原载《南开经济研究》2003年第2期）
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[1] 本文是作者的新著《演化经济学：经济学革命的策源地》中的一节，该书年内将由山西人民出版社出版。本文2003年3月19日首发《经济学家》网站：www.jjxj.com，正式文本发表于《南开经济研究》2003年第2期，部分内容已在2003年3月14日的《经济学消息报》上先期摘要发表。
[2] "autistic"在英文中的含义是"我向思考的" 和"幻想的" ，"autistic economics"是指脱离现实的、幻想中虚构的经济学。由于"post-autistic"在中文难以找到相对应的术语，故" post- autistic economics movement"在本文中暂时译作"经济学改革国际运动"，但有时也使用"后我向思考经济学运动"。
[3] 根据post- autistic economics movement网站http://www.paecon.net/刊载的报道材料整理而成。
[4] post- autistic economics newsletter , Issue no. 9, October 20, 2001.
[5] 参看胡寄窗主编：《西方经济学说史》，立信会计图书用品社，1991年版，第187-196页。
[6] Gloria, S., The Evolution of Austrian Economics: From Menger to Lachmann , London: Routledge, 1999.
[7] Georgescu-Roegen, N., The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Harvard University Press, 1971, PP.2-3.
[8] 张维迎：《经济学：理性选择的科学》，读书，2000年第6期。
[9]http://www.econ.tcu.edu/icare/mail.html，或通过www.google.com搜索ICAPE.
[10] 参看Dopfer, K. (ed) Evolutionary Economics : Program and Scope , Kluwer Academic Publishers,2001, P.3-5.
[11] 参看Hodgson, G. M. (ed) A Modern Reader in Institutional and Evolutionary Economics: Key Concept, Edward Elgar, 2002, P.12.
[12] 真正的名称应该是"瑞典银行经济科学奖"，参看Gingras ,Y., Beautiful Mind, Ugly Deception: The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics Science, post- autistic economics newsletter, Issue no. 17, December 4, 2002.
post-autistic economics network经济学后向改革运动网
http://www.paecon.net/
后向经济学改革运动评论
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/
A Brief History of the Post-Autistic Economics Movement
经济学后向改革运动简史
Theories, scientific and otherwise, do not represent the world as it is but rather by highlighting certain aspects of it while leaving others in the dark. It may be the case that two theories highlight the same aspects of some corner of reality but offer different conclusions. In the last century, this type of situation preoccupied the philosophy of science. Post-Autistic Economics, however, addresses a different kind of situation: one where one theory, that illuminates a few facets of its domain rather well, wants to suppress other theories that would illuminate some of the many facets that it leaves in the dark. This theory is neoclassical economics. Because it has been so successful at sidelining other approaches, it also is called “mainstream economics”.
From the 1960s onward, neoclassical economists have increasingly managed to block the employment of non-neoclassical economists in university economics departments and to deny them opportunities to publish in professional journals. They also have narrowed the economics curriculum that universities offer students. At the same time they have increasingly formalized their theory, making it progressively irrelevant to understanding economic reality. And now they are even banishing economic history and the history of economic thought from the curriculum, these being places where the student might be exposed to non-neoclassical ideas. Why has this tragedy happened?
Many factors have contributed, but three especially. First, neoclassical economists have as a group deluded themselves into believing that all you need for an exact science is mathematics, and never mind about whether the symbols used refer quantitatively to the real world. What began as an indulgence became an addiction, leading to a collective fantasy of scientific achievement where in most cases none exists. To preserve their illusions, neoclassical economists have found it increasingly necessary to isolate themselves from non-believers.
Second, as Joseph Stiglitz has observed, economics has suffered “a triumph of ideology over science”.1 Instead of regarding their theory as a tool in the pursuit of knowledge, neoclassical economists have made it the required viewpoint from which, at all times and in all places, to look at all economic phenomena. This is the position of neoliberalism.
Third, today’s economies, including the societies in which they are embedded, are very different from those of the 19th century for which neoclassical economics was invented to describe. These differences become more pronounced every decade as new aspects of economic reality emerge, for example, consumer societies, corporate globalization, economic induced environmental disasters and impending ecological ones, the accelerating gap between the rich and poor, and the movement for equal-opportunity economies. Consequently neoclassical economics sheds light on an ever-smaller proportion of economic reality, leaving more and more of it in the dark for students permitted only the neoclassical viewpoint. This makes the neoclassical monopoly more outrageous and costly every year, requiring of it ever more desperate measures of defense, like eliminating economic history and history of economics from the curriculum.
But eventually reality overtakes time-warp worlds like mainstream economics and the Soviet Union. The moment and place of the tipping point, however, nearly always takes people by surprise. In June 2000, a few economics students in Paris circulated a petition calling for the reform of their economics curriculum. One doubts that any of those students in their wildest dreams anticipated the effect their initiative would have. Their petition was short, modest and restrained. Its first part, “We wish to escape from imaginary worlds”, summarizes what they were protesting against.
Most of us have chosen to study economics so as to acquire a deep understanding of the economic phenomena with which the citizens of today are confronted. But the teaching that is offered, that is to say for the most part neoclassical theory or approaches derived from it, does not generally answer this expectation. Indeed, even when the theory legitimately detaches itself from contingencies in the first instance, it rarely carries out the necessary return to the facts. The empirical side (historical facts, functioning of institutions, study of the behaviors and strategies of the agents . . .) is almost nonexistent. Furthermore, this gap in the teaching, this disregard for concrete realities, poses an enormous problem for those who would like to render themselves useful to economic and social actors.
The students asked instead for a broad spectrum of analytical viewpoints.
Too often the lectures leave no place for reflection. Out of all the approaches to economic questions that exist, generally only one is presented to us. This approach is supposed to explain everything by means of a purely axiomatic process, as if this were THE economic truth. We do not accept this dogmatism. We want a pluralism of approaches, adapted to the complexity of the objects and to the uncertainty surrounding most of the big questions in economics (unemployment, inequalities, the place of financial markets, the advantages and disadvantages of free-trade, globalization, economic development, etc.)
The Parisian students’ complaint about the narrowness of their economics education and their desire for a broadband approach to economics teaching that would enable them to connect constructively and comprehensively with the complex economic realities of their time hit a chord with French news media. Major newspapers and magazines gave extensive coverage to the students’ struggle against the “autistic science”. Economics students from all over France rushed to sign the petition. Meanwhile a growing number of French economists dared to speak out in support and even to launch a parallel petition of their own. Finally the French government stepped in. The Minister of Education set up a high level commission to investigate the students’ complaints.
News of these events in France spread quickly via the Web and email around the world. The distinction drawn by the French students between what can be called narrowband and broadband approaches to economics, and their plea for the latter, found support from large numbers of economics students and economists in many countries. In June 2001, almost exactly a year after the French students had released their petition, 27 PhD candidates at Cambridge University in the UK launched their own, titled “Opening Up Economics”. Besides reiterating the French students’ call for a broadband approach to economics teaching, the Cambridge students also champion its application to economic research.
This debate is important because in our view the status quo is harmful in at least four respects. Firstly, it is harmful to students who are taught the "tools" of mainstream economics without learning their domain of applicability. The source and evolution of these ideas is ignored, as is the existence and status of competing theories. Secondly, it disadvantages a society that ought to be benefiting from what economists can tell us about the world. Economics is a social science with enormous potential for making a difference through its impact on policy debates. In its present form its effectiveness in this arena is limited by the uncritical application of mainstream methods. Thirdly, progress towards a deeper understanding of many important aspects of economic life is being held back. By restricting research done in economics to that based on one approach only, the development of competing research programs is seriously hampered or prevented altogether. Fourth and finally, in the current situation an economist who does not do economics in the prescribed way finds it very difficult to get recognition for her research.
In August of the same year economics students from 17 countries who had gathered in the USA in Kansas City, released their International Open Letter to all economics departments calling on them to reform economics education and research by adopting the broadband approach. Their letter includes the following seven points.
1. A broader conception of human behavior. The definition of economic man as an autonomous rational optimizer is too narrow and does not allow for the roles of other determinants such as instinct, habit formation and gender, class and other social factors in shaping the economic psychology of social agents.
2. Recognition of culture. Economic activities, like all social phenomena, are necessarily embedded in culture, which includes all kinds of social, political and moral value-systems and institutions. These profoundly shape and guide human behavior by imposing obligations, enabling and disabling particular choices, and creating social or communal identities, all of which may impact on economic behavior.
3. Consideration of history. Economic reality is dynamic rather than static – and as economists we must investigate how and why things change over time and space. Realistic economic inquiry should focus on process rather than simply on ends.
4. A new theory of knowledge. The positive-vs.-normative dichotomy which has traditionally been used in the social sciences is problematic. The fact-value distinction can be transcended by the recognition that the investigator’s values are inescapably involved in scientific inquiry and in making scientific statements, whether consciously or not. This acknowledgement enables a more sophisticated assessment of knowledge claims.
5. Empirical grounding. More effort must be made to substantiate theoretical claims with empirical evidence. The tendency to privilege theoretical tenets in the teaching of economics without reference to empirical observation cultivates doubt about the realism
of such explanations.
6. Expanded methods. Procedures such as participant observation, case studies and discourse analysis should be recognized as legitimate means of acquiring and analyzing data alongside econometrics and formal modelling. Observation of phenomena from different vantage points using various data-gathering techniques may offer new insights into phenomena and enhance our understanding of them.
7. Interdisciplinary dialogue. Economists should be aware of diverse schools of thought within economics, and should be aware of developments in other disciplines, particularly the social sciences.
In March 2003 economics students at Harvard launched their own petition, demanding from its economics department an introductory course that would have “better balance and coverage of a broader spectrum of views” and that would “not only teach students the accepted modes of thinking, but also challenge students to think critically and deeply about conventional truths.”2
Students have not been alone in mounting increasing pressure on the status quo. Thousands of economists from scores of countries have also in various forms taken up the cause for broadband economics under the banner “Post-Autistic Economics” and the slogan “sanity, humanity and science” The PAE movement is not about trying to replace neoclassical economics with another partial truth, but rather about reopening economics for free scientific inquiry, making it a pursuit where empiricism outranks a priorism and where critical thinking rules instead of ideology.
Policy Implications of Post-Autistic Economics
经济学后向改革的政策含义
The neoclassical monopoly in the classroom and its prohibition on critical thinking means that it brainwashes successive generations of students into viewing economic reality exclusively through its concepts, which more often than not misrepresent or veil the world, especially today’s world. Nearly all of these neoclassical notions have a bearing on judgements about social, cultural and economic policy. Consequently, if society were to learn to think about economic matters outside the neoclassical conceptual system, it would almost certainly choose different policies. One of Post-Autistic Economics’ (PAE) projects has been to expose some of the many conceptual lunacies of today’s mainstream, both in terms of the concepts it uses and the concepts it lacks. Drawing on recent essays by PAE economists in A Guide to What’s Wrong with Economics, especially the chapters by Michael A. Bernstein, Geoffrey Hodgson, Peter Söderbaum, Hugh Stretton, Richard Wolff, Robert Costanza, Herman E. Daly, Jean Gadrey and Edward Fullbrook,* this brief article briefly considers ten such concepts.
Neoclassical economics regards competition as a state rather than as a process. It defines perfect competition as a market with a large number of firms with identical products, costs structures, production techniques and market information. But in real life competition is a process by which firms continually seek to re-establish the conditions of their own profitability. To compete in a market requires firms to seek out and exploit differences between them in production, technology, distribution, access to information and awareness of trends in consumption. These differences are the essential dimensions in which competition takes place. Once the neoclassical conception of competition becomes imbedded in the student’s mind, appreciation of real-world competition, and hence the policies that might enhance it, becomes logically impossible.
Neoclassical economists love to talk about freedom of choice. But this is pure rhetoric, because they define rationality in a way that eliminates free choice from their conceptual space. By rationality they mean that an agent’s choices are in conformity with an ordering or scale of preferences. The “rational” agent chooses among the alternatives available that one which is highest on his ranking. Rational behaviour simply means behaviour in accordance with some ordering of alternatives in terms of relative desirability. In order for this approach to have any predictive power, it must be assumed that the preferences do not change over some period of time. So the basic condition of neoclassical rationality is that individuals must forego choice in favour of some past reckoning, thereafter acting as automata. This conceptual elimination of freedom of choice, in both its everyday and philosophical meanings, gives neoclassical theory the hypothetical determinacy that its Newtonian inspired metaphysics require. No indeterminacy; no choice. No determinacy; no neoclassical model. This is far from just an academic matter, because society needs an economics that is able to address questions regarding freedom of choice.
No terms in neoclassical economics are more sacrosanct than rational choice and rationality. Everyone identities with these words, because everyone wants to think of themselves as rational. But few people realize that economists give these words an ultra eccentric meaning. Neoclassical economics begins with an a priori conception of markets and economies as determinate systems that by the action of individual agents alone tend toward an efficient and market-clearing equilibrium. This requires that the individual agents, like the bodies in Newton’s system, behave in a prescribed manner. Neoclassicalists have deduced the particular pattern of behaviour that would make their imagined world logically possible, then named it “rational choice” or “rationality” and then declared that that is the way real people behave. But thankfully they don’t. Everyday economic actors do many things that by the neoclassical meaning of “rational” are “irrational”. Looking to the choices of other consumers as guides to what one might buy; buying a stock because you believe other people will be buying it and so increase its value, spending your money in a spirit of spontaneity rather than stopping to calculate the consequences and alternatives up to the limits of your cognitive powers; a taste for change, that is, buying something because you did not previously prefer it; these common consumer behaviours are all prohibited under the neoclassical notions of rational choice and rationality and so outside its scope of analysis.
These failings connect with another. Neoclassical economics is by its own axioms incapable of offering a coherent conceptualisation of the individual or economic agent. From where do the preferences that supposedly dictate the individual’s choice come from? Not from interpersonal relations, because if individual demands were interdependent, they would not be additive and thus the market demand function – neoclassicalism’s key analytical tool – would be undefined. And not from society, because neoclassicalism’s Newtonian atomism translates as methodological individualism, meaning that society is to be explained in terms of individuals and never the other way around.
This leaves an awful lot in the dark. In the main, despite the neoclassical axioms, we all categorise and classify according to prevailing cultural norms. Likewise our tastes and preferences for this and that reflect the social conventions and institutions with which we interact. Consequently individual choice is unavoidably and inextricably bound up with historically and geographically given social worlds. An economics that has nothing to say about the formation of economic tastes and preferences is silly and irresponsible, especially in an age of consumer societies and in a world now threatened with climate-change or worse.
For half a century neoclassical economics has hid its ideology behind the notion that it calls positive economics. This is the idea that it contains no value judgements because it mentions none. Of course such a notion belongs to an intellectually more naive age than today, but nonetheless it persists as an effective tool of indoctrination of undergraduates. The fact that neoclassical economics requires a highly restricted focus in order to maintain its atomist and determinist metaphysics compels it to make many extreme judgements about what is and is not economically important. There is not space even to list them. But an example is its notion of “economic man”, which is acutely ideological, as it emphasizes some roles and relationships and excludes others. By allowing only decisions based on utility maximization, it excludes other forms of ethics. As an economic agent, each individual acts in many roles, not just market ones, and is guided by his or her “ideological orientation”. That orientation may be founded on utilitarianism or not. It may for example be based on social and environmental ethics. PAE economists do not believe that economists have the right to select one ethics as the “correct” one for framing economic analysis. Furthermore the neoclassical insistence upon the utilitarian ideology legitimises a kind of “market ideology” and “consumerism” that increasingly appears dangerous to society and sidelines the debate about Sustainable Development.
Like rationality, nearly everyone thinks efficiency is a good idea. Neoclassical economists adore using this word, especially when addressing the public. But the meaning of “efficiency” always depends on what you choose to count. For example, suppose five firms all manage to lower by the same amounts the production cost and selling price of a standard product that they all produce. One does it by cutting its workers’ pay, another by working them longer hours, another by getting materials at lower prices from a poorer country, another by replacing some of its workers with robots, and another by inventing machinery improvements that allow it to cut work hours with no loss of output, profit, jobs or pay. Are all of these changes equally efficient (or inefficient)? A neoclassical economist will answer yes, because the five firms all end up producing the same product at the same cost and selling it at the same price. For them that is all that matters.
The prevailing mainstream also holds that in the realm of public affairs its concept of “efficiency” can and should determine the net balance between the positives (total benefits) and negatives (total costs) that would result from an economic policy or act. In place of public debate economists would substitute “cost-benefit analysis”. But any such analysis depends on the consequences selected and the kinds of “measurements” made. No efficiency claim is ever based on an identification of all the consequences, and quantitative quesstimates of the future inevitably have a crystal-ball dimension. In the final analysis, “efficient”, like “beautiful” is little more than a way of expressing a positive opinion.
Mainstream economics, and in consequence most policy dialogue, conflates two very different meanings of economic growth that are in common usage and with GNP mistakenly taken to be a measure of both. There is quantitative growth meaning an increase in the quantity of production and consumption, and there is qualitative growth meaning an improvement in well-being. For example, an epidemic may lead to growth of medical expenditure and hence increase GNP but not well-being. Pollution and congestion lead to huge expenditures to escape them (e.g., commuting from the suburbs, double glazing, air filters, security measures), the creation of new industries and an ever larger GNP but they also decrease well-being. Quantitative growth that causes negative qualitative growth is also called uneconomic growth. It is both a reality and a concept with which policy makers must come to terms, the sooner the better.
Closely related to these new anti-neoclassical concepts is another one, sustainable development. This refers to the physical scale of the economy relative to the ecosystem. Ecological economists view the economy as an open subsystem of the larger ecosystem which is finite, non-growing and, except for solar energy, materially closed. This point of view compels asking questions regarding scale. How large is the economic subsystem relative to the earth’s ecosystem? What is its maximum possible size? What is its most desirable size in terms of human welfare? These questions, around which policy decisions will and must increasingly be made, are not found in standard economics textbooks. Neoclassical economics can not accommodate the concept of sustainable development because if adopted as a goal it requires that goods be valued in part by their contribution to that goal and not solely on their contribution to individual utility maximisation.
The close to monopoly position of neoclassical economics is incompatible with normal ideas of democracy. Economics has some of the qualities of a science, but because of the very nature of its subject matter it is forever and fundamentally ideological. It is best not to deceive oneself and others about that. Economics’ preoccupation with values and worldly acts means that in a democratic society it has a moral responsibility to promote the exploration of economic knowledge from more than one point of view so as to make possible the informed and intelligent debate and discussion that democracy requires. But the hegemony of neoclassical economics means that departments of economics have become political propaganda centres. In 2002, Joseph Stiglitz, a recent winner of the so-called Nobel Prize for Economics, wrote in The Guardian that economics as taught “in America"s graduate schools . . . bears testimony to a triumph of ideology over science.” Is this a legitimate use of public funds? What is certain is that it is a dangerous state of affairs, but one that is now being challenged. The PAE movement immodestly seeks over the next ten years a revolution: the transformation of economics into a genuinely pluralistic enterprise wishing to contribute to, rather than subvert, democratic processes. The movement’s success depends in part on other disciplines and professions withdrawing their patronage from the neoclassical hegemony in favour of the now thousands of economists working for the new order.
Note
* A Guide to What’s Wrong with Economics, edited by Edward Fullbrook, Anthem Press 2004
The Strange History of Economics
怪异的经济学历史
These days people like to call neoclassical economics “mainstream economics” because most universities offer nothing else. The name also backhandedly stigmatizes as oddball, flaky, deviant, disreputable, perhaps un-American those economists who venture beyond the narrow confines of the neoclassical axioms. To understand the powerful attraction of those axioms one must know a little about their origins. They are not what an outsider might think. Although today neoclassical economics cavorts with neoliberalism, it began as a honest intellectual and would-be scientific endeavour. Its patron saint was neither an ideologue nor a political philosopher nor even an economist, but Sir Isaac Newton. The founding fathers of neoclassical economics hoped to achieve, and their descendents living today believe they have, for the economic universe what Newton had achieved for the physical universe.
This brief article roughly traces the strange history of economics from the 1870s through to the beginning of Post-Autistic Economics movement in the summer of 2000.
Physics Envy
Neoclassical economics began as a project to fashion an economic model in the image of Newtonian mechanics, one in which economic agents could be treated as if they were particles obeying mechanical laws, and all of whose behaviour could, in principle, be described simultaneously by a solvable system of equations. This narrative required the treatment of human desires as fundamental data, which, like the masses of physical bodies in classical mechanics, are not affected by the relations being modelled. It was to this end -- not to the understanding of economic phenomena -- that homo economicus or economic man and the hedonistic calculus were invented. Thorstein Veblen sums up the core metaphysic as follows:
the human material with which the inquiry is concerned is conceived in hedonistic terms; that is to say, in terms of a passive and substantially inert and immutably given human nature. . . . The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasure and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He has neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated definitive human datum . . . 1
With this construct at its centre, the dream of a determinate model of the economic universe was realized in the 1870s by William Stanley Jevons and, especially, by Léon Walras, both of whom were in part physicists by training. Called the model of general equilibrium, this elaborate mechanistic metaphor, proudly devoid of empirical content, remains the grand narrative of economic theory for students and economists everywhere.
The model, which invariably is expressed in language so metaphorical that it would make a good poet blush, works by laying down a priori, like Euclidean geometry, a set of axioms.
The economic universe is determinate.
It exists in a void rather than in an ecosystem.
All relations in an economy are self-regulating, in the sense that any disturbance “sets in motion forces tending to restore the balance”.
These “forces” result exclusively from the behaviour of isolated individual agents.
The behaviour of these agents conforms to certain mathematical properties. For example, consumer choice is characterized by transitivity (if X is preferred to Y and Y to Z, then X is always preferred to Z), completeness (out of the set of all possible bundles of goods given her income, she considers her preference between every pair of them) and independence (consumers are not influenced by the choices of other consumers).
To their credit, few economists have tried to provide empirical support for these axioms. Instead this is a realm in which formalistic expediency rules. The entities of the model and relations between them must be conceived in a way that makes them isomorphic to those of Newton’s model of the physical universe. The exigencies of the grand metaphor rule even when the model is, as in the pedagogically popular Marshallian tradition, applied piecemeal and non-mathematically to individual markets. For example consider the elementary and ubiquitous notion of market demand for a product X. Because a macro mass is in fact an additive function of its micro masses, neoclassical economics defines market demand as the additive function of the demands for X of individual agents. But this assumes that everyone’s demand for a product is independent of everyone else’s demand for that product, for example, that one’s choice of a disco is not influenced by whether it is crowded or dead empty. Without this independence (that is, the absence of all intersubjective effects) market demand as understood by mainstream economics does not exist. But as everyone knows – even neoclassical economists when they are off-duty-- in consumer societies strong intersubjective effects in markets are the rule rather than the exception.
Veblen and Keynes
At the very end of the 19th Century, Thorstein Veblen launched a counter-revolution against the growing domination of the neoclassical approach in economics. Besides critiquing the neoclassical assumptions, he analysed institutions as well as isolated individuals, emphasized emergent social phenomena, argued that habit influenced economic choice more than rational calculation, rejected all forms of reductionism, and stressed the importance of knowledge in economic evolution. This approach steadily gained adherents in the years leading up to WWI, and in 1917 one its leaders, John R. Commons, was elected president of the American Economics Association (AEA). The following year at the AEA meetings this new school was christened “institutional economics” and embraced by the association as a means of making economic theory capable of addressing the problems of economic development that would follow the conclusion of the war.2 In the 1920s in the US the Institutionalists came to rival the Neoclassicals, but in the 1930s their numbers declined. Like neoclassical economics, institutional economics had no explanation of or solution to the calamity that had befallen capitalist economies.
In stepped John Maynard Keynes. He offered a new theoretical interpretation of capitalist economies that both explained their collapse and pointed to practical measures that would, without interfering with their general principles, get them going again and keep them functioning smoothly. Given the dire straights of capitalism and the growing fear of revolution, not even neoclassical economists dared for long to keep Keynes’ theory from being given a try. When it was shown to work, that, at one level, ended the argument. For example, henceforth all American presidents would in the basic management of the economy be Keynesians. But at the theoretical level, which in the neoclassical tradition means theory that is axiom-led rather than empirically-led (else their axioms would have been abandoned long ago), the argument had only just begun. In 1946 Keynes died and neoclassical economists began their counterinsurgency. This time they would not be satisfied until most economics departments in the world had been cleansed of economists who voiced non-neoclassical ideas.
The Pentagon
Keynes had trained at Cambridge University as a mathematician. In his mid-twenties he wrote Treatise on Probability, a book lauded by Whitehead and Russell (“it is impossible to praise too highly”) and that launched what has become known as the “logical-relationist” theory of probability. When turning his attention to economics, he was shocked by the way mathematical economists abused mathematics, especially applying them in meaningless ways to unsuitable phenomena, and he made no secret of his professional contempt for their empty pretentiousness. But these economists were soon to have their revenge. Led by Paul Samuelson in the US and John Hicks in the UK, they set about mathematicising Keynes’s theory. Or, more accurately, a part of his theory. They left out all those bits that were inconsistent with the neoclassical axioms. Their end product was a formalized version of Keynes that is like a Henry Miller novel without sex and profanity. This bowdlerized version of Keynes, called “Keynesianism”, soon became standard fare in undergraduate courses. Even graduate students were discouraged from reading the primary text. With the real Keynes out of the way and Veblen and all the other free spirits forgotten, the road was now clear to establish a neoclassical tyranny.
Following WWII, the United States increasingly came to determine (one might say dictate) the shape of economics worldwide, while within the United States the sources of influence became concentrated and circumscribed to an absurd degree. This state of affairs, which persists to the present day, was engineered in significant part by the US Department of Defense, especially its Navy and Air Force.3 Beginning in the 1950s it lavishly funded university research in mathematical economics. Military planners believed that game theory and linear programming had potential use for national defense. And although now it seems ridiculous, they held out the same hope for mathematical solutions of “general equilibrium”, the theoretical core of Neoclassical economics. In 1954 Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu achieved for this mathematical puzzle a solution of sorts that has been the central show piece of academic economics ever since. Arrow’s early research had been partly, in his words, “carried on at the RAND Corporation, a project of the United States Air Force.”4 In the 1960s, official publications of the Department of Defense praised the Arrow-Debreu project for its “modeling of conflict and cooperation whether if be [for] combat or procurement contracts or exchange of information among dispersed decision nodes.” In 1965, RAND created a fellowship program for economics graduate students at the Universities of California, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Columbia and Princeton, and in addition provided postdoctoral funds for those who best fitted the mold. These seven economics departments along with MIT’s, an institution long regarded by many as a branch of the Pentagon, have come to dominate economics globally to an astonishing extent. Two examples will show what I mean.
The American Economic Review (AER), the Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE), and the Journal of Political Economy (JPE), have long been regarded as the world’s three most prestigious economics journals, the ones in which a publication adds the most value to an economist’s CV and most helps an economics department’s ranking and research funding.
A study has been made of the affiliation of the authors of full-length articles appearing in these journals from 1973 through 1978.5 For the QJE it found that the eight departments with the most articles were the seven favoured through RAND by the US Department of Defense plus MIT, and that this Big Eight accounted for 77.3 percent of the articles published. In the JPE all of the RAND Seven were in the top ten and together with MIT accounted for 63.1 percent of the articles published. In the AER the top eight contributing departments were again the RAND Seven plus MIT, which together accounted for 59.3 percent of the articles published. Even within this Big Eight there was an astonishing concentration of success. In the QJE, which is controlled by Harvard, 33.3 percent of the articles were by Harvard-affiliated authors. In the JPE, controlled by Chicago, 20.7 percent of the articles were by Chicago-affiliated authors. In the AER, nearly half of whose editorial board during these years was from, in rank order, Chicago, MIT and Harvard, 14.0, 10.7 and 7.1 percent of the articles were by authors from these departments respectively. About 70% of the board members were from the Big Eight and nearly 60 percent of the members of the nominating committees for officers.
Is it any wonder that the departments are “distinguished”? Thus the “best” departments are those who publish in their own journals, which are “best” since they publish the “best” departments. This academic incest would be considered genetically unsound if it involved biological reproduction.”6
A glance through the 2003 edition of Penguin’s Dictionary of Economics illustrates the accentuated continuation of this tiny all-powerful closed shop. The dictionary has entries for 29 living economists. Of these, 26, 89.7 percent, are from the US or have had all or the most important part of their careers there. Think about that: 26 for one country and 3 for the rest of world. And that is in a British publication by a team of three British authors. And what are the affiliations of the 26 US economists? 100% of them have either taught at or received their PhD from one of the Big Eight.
Notes
1. Thorstein Veblen, "Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 12, 1898, p373
2. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, How Economics Forgot History, Routledge 2001, p155
3. This paragraph draws heavily on Michael A. Bernstein, “Rethinking Economics in Twentieth-Century American”, The Crisis in Economics, edited by Edward Fullbrook, Routledge, 2003, pp154-61
4. Kenneth Arrow, Collected Papers of Kenneth J. Arrow: Volume 1: Social choice and Justice, Harvard University Press 1983, p1
5. E. Ray Canterbery and Robert J. Burkhardt, “What do we mean by asking whether economics is a science?” Why Economics Is Not Yet a Science, edited by Alfred S. Eichner, Macmillan 1983, pp15-40
6. Ibid p28