View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Anglia Ruskin Research Online ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY ON THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION IN ECONOMICS ROMAN LINNEBERG ELIASSEN A thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Ruskin University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted: June 2016 Acknowledgements This PhD project has been funded by a 3-year studentship from Lord Ashcroft International Business School, Anglia Ruskin University, for which I am very grateful, and without which it could not have been completed. I have also received financial support from the Norwegian State Education Loan Fund. Anglia Ruskin University and Cambridge University Library have provided me with the facilities required to conduct the work. I would like to thank my first supervisor, Dr Craig Duckworth, for stimulating discussions and sound advice, and, crucially, for taking me under his wing at a critical stage of the project as well as accommodating its realization in many ways. The persistent support of my second supervisor, Dr Mark Hayes, has been invaluable throughout the whole process, and his apt feedback and constructive recommendations have been instrumental in steering the project onto the right course. I am grateful to Dr Ioana Negru, Professor Simon Down and Dr Jose Gabriel Palma, who have all been involved in the supervisory team at some stage. Further thanks go to my pluralist colleague and friend Imko Meyenburg for an enduring intellectual partnership; Jostein Løhr Hauge and Ivan Rajić, with whom I have worked on a tangential project; Bjørn-Ivar Davidsen, Smitha Sebastian and Jesper Jespersen, who have read parts of my work and discussed it with me; my colleague and friend Magdalena Partac, who has so often been a human face among the book stacks at the library; and participants and hosts at the 1st Vienna conference on Pluralism in Economics, IIPPE’s 6th annual conference in Leeds and Tony Lawson’s Critical Realist Workshop, at which some of the fruits of this work (and the tangential project) has been presented and discussed. I am grateful to Johannes Oldervoll, who, among other things, has proofread the dissertation. Finally, I am of course indebted to all my family and friends for their continued support and for reminding me that work is a means to life and not the other way around. I will therefore try to display my appreciation of them in the proper realm. However, one person receives a special mention. Whereas the revamped salad bar at the library has provided a healthy physical foundation for this work, the greatest thank you goes to Kathrin Lang, who has had the much more demanding task of maintaining the mental sanity required – every day. i ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT LORD ASCHROFT INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL Doctor of Philosophy On the liberty of thought and discussion in economics Roman Linneberg Eliassen June 2016 This thesis offers a new justification and interpretation of “pluralism in economics” and discusses how it can be implemented. Calls for pluralism reflect discontent with the exclusive dominance of one approach in economics. This perceived monism entails twofold oppression of contesting theories with a legitimate claim to truth and of the academics that promote them. A doctrine of pluralism thus has to satisfy both an epistemological and a moral condition. However, the literature on pluralism in economics either overly associates pluralism with heterodox economics or fails to provide sufficient epistemological and institutional recommendations. The thesis seeks to abstract from the content of current orthodox and heterodox theory in order to give a consistent interpretation of pluralism as a stable and lasting doctrine. Firstly, given epistemic uncertainty, pluralism is required for the advancement of knowledge, the consequences of which are drawn by application of Mill’s arguments for the liberty of thought and discussion and their further development in Feyerabend’s methodological pluralism. Secondly, the doctrine must secure the right of all academics to pursue truth in the ways they deem fit. Drawing on Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality and Longino’s norms for scientific discourse, ideal conditions for pluralist scientific exchange are delineated. Reviewing sociological evidence, it is shown that there is a well-organized hierarchical system in the discipline that reinforces monism through education, journals, hiring/promotion and research funding. Given these constraints, the calls for pluralism amount to a call for liberal education reform in economics, in which the aim is to foster the intellectual development of students. Pluralism is not about accommodating a range of approaches; pluralism ensures an environment that yields academics capable of truth- pursuit in a world of uncertain knowledge. However, intricate links between economics and power relations in society may inhibit its feasibility. Key words: pluralism, heterodox economics, abstract move, discourse ethics, Matthew effect, liberal education. ii Table of contents Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Enemies of the people 3 The abstract move 7 What is pluralism? 11 Chapter 2. Two concepts of pluralism 14 Ivan’s paradox and McLennan’s challenge 15 The map and the territory 20 Lawson and the beast 23 Isomorphism? 31 Dow, schools of thought and ontology 32 The spirit of pluralism 43 The ontological view: summary and challenges 44 Screpanti’s ethical precept 48 Lee’s tolerance 50 Caldwell’s critical pluralism 52 Samuels’ criticism and credentials 54 Freeman and Kliman’s critical pluralism 57 Garnett’s traces of paradigmism 61 The lay of the land 66 Chapter 3. Some footnotes to J.S. Mill 71 Happiness and liberty 72 On the liberty of thought and discussion 74 First argument 74 Second argument 76 Third argument 79 Fourth argument 81 Summary of Mill’s arguments 84 The condition the condition is in 87 Anything goes 89 Feyerabend and pluralism 93 Where is the world? 102 Is normal science normal? 104 Towards a happy dismal science 106 Chapter 4. Procedural standards for pluralism 108 Political science? 109 Two concepts of liberty 111 Behind the veil of ignorance, and beyond 115 Establishing the standards 119 The rules of discourse 122 Reason: reasonable or social? 128 Norms for critical scientific discourse 132 Towards truth and justice 138 iii Chapter 5. Pluralism – standard procedure? 140 The Matthew effect 142 Journals and the gospel of St. Matthew 143 Journal impact factors 145 Hierarchy of the sciences 148 Heterodox discrimination 149 Research assessment in the UK 151 Diamonds are forever 154 The superiority of economists 159 View from the top of the pyramid 162 Economics – an ideal critical discourse? 164 The foundation of the pyramid 171 Chapter 6. Pluralism: more than one 173 Fostering capable pluralists 173 The idea of a university 175 The standard economics curriculum 179 Perry’s scheme for intellectual development 184 How many is pluralism? 188 History of economic thought at Northampton University 193 Critical thinking 195 Back to pluralism 201 Preliminary conclusion 206 Chapter 7. In place of a conclusion: the limits to pluralism 211 Limit #1: Power struggle 213 The causes of formalism 215 Limit #2: The colonization of economics 217 Thinking becomes technique 220 Limit #3: The violence of education 224 Conclusion 226 References 227 iv Copyright Declaration I hereby declare that the work in this dissertation is my own. It contains no material that has been published or written by anyone else for the award of a degree or diploma at Anglia Ruskin University or any other institution. All use of sources is acknowledged in accordance with established rules on fair dealing for the purposes of criticism, review and quotation and sound referencing practices. The copyright of this thesis lies with (i) Anglia Ruskin University, for one year starting from the date of publication, after which it is handed over to (ii) Roman Linneberg Eliassen This copy of the thesis has been supplied on the condition that anyone who consults it is bound by copyright. 28.05.2016 Roman Linneberg Eliassen v Chapter 1. Introduction The majority, being satisfied with the ways of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are), cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for everybody. (Mill, 1998 [1859]: 63) In recent years, pluralism has become a buzzword in economics. In addition to being a central topic in economic methodology, it has been at the core of demands of several waves of student protests since the turn of the century. There is a lot of talk about pluralism, but what does it actually mean? At face value, the calls for pluralism point to the problem: monism. Economics is dominated by a single approach – neoclassical or mainstream or orthodox economics – characterized by a reliance on certain methodological principles, such as mathematical formalism (e.g. Lawson, 2003), to the exclusion of approaches that do not conform to these principles. The general sentiment among proponents of pluralism is that this methodological monism has rendered the discipline unable to explain key economic phenomena in our time. Without further scrutiny, however, the term “pluralism” does not mean much more than “solution” or “alternative” to the perceived problem. We need to go beyond this simple suggestion: Monism is the problem; pluralism is the answer. There is a need for a clear and consistent conception of pluralism, and this must be anchored in a clear and consistent understanding of why we need and want it. Monism has come under attack in two separate, yet intrinsically linked, areas: economic theory and economics education. Regarding economic theory, the criticism is mainly launched by heterodox economists, who claim, for example, that the virtual silencing of heterodox theory has diminished the range of policy tools both in the run- up to and in the aftermath of the financial crisis.