𝔖 Bobbio Scriptorium
✦   LIBER   ✦

Chicago Fundamentalism (Ideology and Methodology in Economics) || When Truth is Not Beauty, Nor Beauty Truth: A Review of Econ Art — Divorcing Art from Science in Modern Economics

✍ Scribed by Freedman, Craig F


Book ID
120155917
Publisher
WORLD SCIENTIFIC
Year
2008
Tongue
English
Weight
74 KB
Edition
2
Category
Article
ISBN
9812812016

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis


Cold-war ideology infected the development of economics in ways its practitioners were often not fully aware. The Chicago counter-revolution against the dominant post-war triumph of Keynesian analysis had an essential subtext, a perceived struggle between freedom and collective slavery. Ideological objectives subsequently influenced methodological concerns, pushing economists to adopt the zero-sum tactics of the courtroom rather than the mutually beneficial manners of the senior common room. In these ideologically charged times, economists stopped reading opposing views carefully, seeking instead to dismiss, out of hand, uncongenial ideas.In this collection of previously published and new material, Craig Freedman examines the problem of ideology through the reflection cast by the architects of the Chicago counter-revolution, George Stigler and Milton Friedman. The second half of the volume demonstrates the legacy of these ideological fires, namely a profession where the methodology of careless reading and zero-sum exchanges have persisted and come to dominate.