Randazzo and Haidt on Economists, Left and Right

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In the EconJournalWatch symposium, they write,

There are two basic narratives about capitalism circulating in Western society today. One says that capitalism is exploitation (or at least is highly conducive to exploitation); the other says that capitalism is liberation. If you endorse the exploitation narrative, then you are more likely to see government as the main force that protects innocent victims. It protects them with a welfare state and with a regulatory state. But if you endorse the liberation narrative, then you’ll want government to step back as much as possible and let capitalism work its magic. You’ll want to shrink both the welfare state and the regulatory state.

This is somewhat congruent with the three-axis model. In my terminology, your basic economic narrative is oppressor-oppressed or freedom-coercion.

As they themselves admit, the narrative that they provide for economists on the left is not something they would recognize as characterizing their own views. It would fail Bryan Caplan’s ideological Turing test.

I believe that most economists on the left believe that there are incentive problems in markets and that technocrats can fix those problems. They do not think of markets as intrinsically about exploitation.

Randazzo and Haidt argue that economists’ moral views can predict their economic analysis.

our survey data shows that responses to moral propositions can be used to predict responses to empirical (positive) economic theory propositions. For example, how much importance an economist assigns to the moral foundation of “care” predicts views on whether austerity is good or bad for economic growth, whether a single-payer healthcare system would reduce national healthcare costs or not, whether minimum-wage laws benefit or harm workers, and whether or not national debt and deficits adversely affect economic growth.

11 thoughts on “Randazzo and Haidt on Economists, Left and Right”

  1. The models in Haidt’s article appears to address liberals and libertarians. Using your three languages model could there be a third narrative for conservatives? It would be that capitalism is a civilizing force because it requires discipline and working with others (such as business addressing needs of customers) to succeed. It has also enabled us to increase our living standard from primitive level (i.e., barbarism) to modern.

    • Of course there is. The “civilisation-barbarism” model of capitalism is in fact the one I grew up with; I only later learned about the “freedom-coercion” story, which still seems to me to be lacking.

      Under this story, capitalism is about the emergence of institutions such as secure property rights and a modern banking system, which then support and encourage norms and habits of productivity, such as working hard, saving, self-advancement, etc. In other words, a level of civilisation is necessary for capitalism to emerge, which capitalism then reinforces and takes further.

      • Yes, I would have also said institutions.

        But what about the freedom-coercion axis is lacking? Without that as an escape valve, conservatives are just fighting for control over the institutions, and losing I’d say.

    • Mr. Scuotaguazza: This is a great idea! The best suggestion i’ve heard yet for a third story. I love Kling’s 3 axes, and i agree that my two narratives are really derived from just two of them. Thank you.

  2. Perhaps there is another dichotomy between those who think in simplistic terms and those who think the world is more complex.

    • It seems simplistic to only split people into 2 groups: simple and complex thinkers…;)

      • Some things are really simple. My favorite example is that everything you see is made up of three subatomic particles.

        So I guess the 3rd type of person is one who can think simply and complexly.

        • (Then there are the people who think they think complexly but are really simple thinkers, but we won’t get into that)

          • And those who think simply about most things, and complexly about a very few (hint: this is, by a huge margin, the biggest group)

        • The particle example is a bad one. Really what you have are quantum fields, abstracting “particles” out of them philosophically is a bit tricky. They are useful for abstractions for some purposes such as the tracks detected by atom smashers, but they obscure other things and I think in general “quantum particle” is an overused idea.

          It’s not that they don’t exist, it’s the the question of in what sense they exist is — complicated.

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