Maxine Udall: POWER

Here is one of my favorite all-time quotes from Maxine Udall (aka Alison Snow Jones):

"Regular readers know that one recurring theme in this blog is that concentrated economic and political power in the private sector is as much a "problem" as an ineffective, inefficient guvment especially one that has been deprived of the funds needed to regulate a complex capitalist society based on commercial exchange and characterized in some sectors (like health and finance) by several types of market failure."

Maxine Udall: She will be missed

Dr. Alison Snow Jones, author of the blog Maxine Udall, Girl Economist, passed away last week. I never had the chance to meet Dr. Jones, but I was definitely inspired by her ideas and her gift for writing. She was a talented writer who had the rare skill make powerful arguments in brilliant, unique ways. Her ruminations about economics (and life) illustrated both her sharp wit and her humanity. She was anything but the run of the mill economist or social scientist, that's for sure. Her writings reminded me of the intellect and wit of my favorite essayists...she just had that ability to string together arguments in inspirational and fascinating ways. I learned a lot from her style and sharp analytical sense, and admired her ability to communicate her thoughts and ideas. I kept wondering when she would publish a set of collected essays about economics--I would have bought a book by her in a second. She was absolutely one of my favorite writers, and I always looked forward to what she would say next. She will be missed. Rest in peace, Dr. Jones.

Maxine Udall: Ethics and Economists

Maxine Udall reports that a group of economists have sent a letter to the presidents of the American Economic Association (AEA), urging the adoption of a code of ethics. This includes an emphasis on the need to disclose conflicts of interest "that can arise between economists’ roles as economic experts and as paid consultants, principals or agents for private firms." Udall writes,

Economics is unusual among the social science professions in that it lacks professional ethical codes or guidelines. In addition to the American Sociological Association, the American Anthropology Association has a code of ethics. Similarly, the American Psychology Association and the American Statistical Association both have guidelines for ethics. These codes and guidelines vary in several ways: some demand that professional members simply reveal potential conflicts; others demand that they do whatever they can to avoid or end such conflicts.

This is a pretty interesting turn of events--especially considering the number of economists out there giving advice and opinions on a daily basis. I wonder how this will turn out...and I wonder how different economists will react to this idea.

Inefficient Assumptions

Maxine Udall is my favorite economics writer these days, hands down. Her latest post talks about one subject that often confounds me: how can so many people assume that government is the main source of all economic problems? How do so many economists explain away our current economic issues as the result of government intervention, while dismissing the culpability of the private sector.

In some circles, while the government is the source of all evil, the private sector, led by that wonderfully benevolent invisible hand, is almost angelic. I have a really difficult time with analytical frameworks that result in automatic responses, period. For example, some neo-marxists will tell you, almost invariably, that the source of all of our problems is capitalism. Never mind the various contexts in which capitalism exists, or the various forms that it takes, or the multitude of ways in which capitalism plays out (positive and negative)--the problem, in the eyes of some, is always "capitalism". Ok, great. For me this kind of thinking is insufficient. And it's cut from the same cloth as the free-market ideologists who always frame "the state" or "government" as the main culprit in almost any economic disaster.

Udall consistently argues, instead, that the true problem that we need to address is the concentration of power--no matter where it exists (government or private sector). Rather than focusing on the same old ideological responses, maybe we should consider how power, corruption, and coercion can infiltrate many different economic and political systems. Read this:

Regular readers know that one recurring theme in this blog is that concentrated economic and political power in the private sector is as much a "problem" as an ineffective, inefficient guvment especially one that has been deprived of the funds needed to regulate a complex capitalist society based on commercial exchange and characterized in some sectors (like health and finance) by several types of market failure. Regular readers also know that as someone who grew up in a private sector family business, I expect private sector employees and their managers to behave better than caricatures of mindless guvmint bureaucrats that populate cautionary tales about totalitarian guvmints.

Read the rest here. Udall's discussions over on her site illustrate quite well why economics is a social science. The "market" is not some magical, predictable force that has a mind of its own--it's populated and shaped by humans with a varying degree of ethical constraints, desires, and motivations. That means that any economic analysis is going to have to take account of political factors, one way or another. Some economic and social theorists attribute certain predictable traits to particular systems or institutions--"capitalism" and "socialism" being two of the main terms that often get completely reduced to useless ideological caricatures. And while the anti-capitalists and the anti-socialists keep yelling at one another from their respective sides, power continues to accumulate and be deployed in ways that cut across these ridiculously simple divisions.

Maxine Udall: Beach Houses and Health Care

I think that Maxine Udall is my favorite economics blogger. Every time I check her site there is another great post that gets me thinking about economics, and then how that relates to anthropology and all of the issues that I focus on. Here is a key quote from a new post about those wonderful folks who equate health care with every other good and service (like a nice beach house):

It's more likely that someone somewhere said that "free markets" make everyone better off, but didn't bother to explain that markets fail for a variety of reasons that are rampant in health care. Believers in beach house-health care equivalence are really just trying to make everyone better off. Someone somewhere said that people at the top are more productive and therefore deserve more. Believers in beach house-health care equivalence are often at the top, they know in their hearts that they are way more productive, so it's obvious that this is true and fair. Someone somewhere told them about moral hazard and unanticipated side-effects. As a result, believers in beach house-health care equivalence have developed a morbid terror that someone somewhere will free ride or, worse, distort resources away from the beach houses that would otherwise be built.

Read the rest here.

Maxine Udall: Rethinking Economics

Another great post over at Maxine Udall's site. There are some pretty good discussions around the blogosphere about the direction(s) of the discipline of economics...and part of this discussion revolves around methodology. This is something that I admittedly do not know much about; I really do not have a solid grasp of the actual methods of economists, although I am reasonably well-versed in their general theoretical tendencies.* Here's the ending of Udall's post:

"New eyes, untrained and unbiased by indoctrination into the hard core of economic theory and its accompanying heuristics and corollaries, may well be exactly what economics needs to become a true and more useful science."

Now go read the beginning and the middle.

*From what I have read, it seems pretty clear that economics and anthropology are quite opposed in many senses. These differences often revolve around ideas about human nature--is there such a thing as a universal human nature? Do certain economic principles apply in all times and all places? Or is human behavior highly contextual and historical? Do humans make "economic" decisions that have to be understood and analyzed within particular situations?

I have written about this subject a few times on some earlier posts. What I am not sure about is to what extent economics are even interested in what anthropologists are doing. Who knows? So yes, I tend to disagree with many ideas that I see presented by economists, but I also realize that not all economists think alike. While there are some pretty strong differences between anthropology and economics, I still think that there is something to be gained from a little conversation between the two.