WHAT SOCIAL SCIENTISTS CAN OFFER

 

In the last posting, this blog reviewed the general shortcomings of the social sciences, as an information source.  But it also pointed out that they are better at providing needed information and analysis than most other sources.[1]  To make that report, the blog focused on economics and the work of the Nobel prize winners, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo.[2]  This posting wants to focus on how the social sciences, as exemplified by economics, can be more amenable to federalist governance and politics – as promoted in this blog.

          To do that, this posting will share with readers two quotes from these economists’ book, Good Economics for Hard Times.  The first quote is:

 

It is important that this project [to establish a dialogue with the general public that] we be guided by an expansive notion of what human beings want and what constitutes the good life.  Economists have a tendency to adopt a notion of well-being that is often too narrow, some version of income or material consumption.  And yet, all of us need much more than that to have a fulfilling life:  the respect of the community, the comforts of family and friends, dignity, lightness, pleasure.  The focus on income alone is not just a convenient shortcut.  It is distorting lens that often has led the smartest economists down the wrong path, policy makers to the wrong decisions, and all too many of us to wrong obsessions.[3]

 

Here, this blogger thinks, is a call for a more communal, as opposed to individualistic, mindset when considering what economists and social scientists in general should focus upon.  Of course, the more individual view – the one that prevails today – simply reflects the dominance of the natural rights view. 

This blog has dedicated a great deal of space to describe and explain this view, but in a few words, it promotes the claim that individuals have the right to do as they please as long as they do not prohibit others from the same rights.  One can readily see that with this basic belief, resulting study in economics will emphasize income, wealth, and securing material assets.  That is, what most economists highlight in their approach to the study of economics – as the quote indicates – and counters what Banerjee and Duflo are suggesting.

          This blog has also promoted a federalist view – the liberated federalism construct – and has argued that it should replace the natural rights view in guiding the development of civics curriculum in American schools.  In a few words, that would be a curriculum that establishes the fact that the nation’s governance is based on a compact – a sacred agreement that brings together its citizenry under the relationship of a partnership.  A meaningful step in that direction would be to adopt what these economists suggest for their discipline and, by implication, for all of the social sciences.

          And the other quote gives readers more substance to what Banerjee and Duflo suggest:

 

A better conversation must start by acknowledging the deep human desire for dignity and human contact, and to treat it not as a distraction, but as a better way to understand each other, and set ourselves free from what appear to be intractable oppositions.  Restoring human dignity to its central place … set off a profound rethinking of economic priorities and the ways in which societies care for their members, particularly when they are in need.[4]

 

Equally, if all the social sciences took this recommendation to heart, they would be a great deal more useful in reestablishing a federalist nation in thought, feeling, and action.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, “Should One Listen to Social Scientists?”, Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, December 5, 2023, accessed December 8, 2023, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  Use the archives link.

[2] Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times (New York, NY:  Public Affairs, 2019).

[3] Ibid., 8.

[4] Ibid., 8.

SHOULD ONE LISTEN TO SOCIAL SCIENTISTS?

 

From this blog’s February 19, 2021, posting, the following is offered:

 

The very first sentence of a book by the Nobel Prize winners Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo about economic challenges is “We live in an age of growing polarization.”[1]  Early in their book they cite the following: 

·       81% of Americans who identify with one of the major parties has a negative opinion of the other party;

·       61% of Democrats classify Republicans as being racists, sexists, or bigots; 55% of Republicans dismiss Democrats as spiteful; and

·       Roughly one of every three Americans expresses disappointment if a close family member were to marry someone of the opposing political party.[2]

Other works cited in this blog support this overall descriptive conclusion by providing further relevant statistics.[3]

 

With that backdrop, the citizenry, according to press reports, has been feeding on misinformation from social media.  The claim here is that if one strives for a future that incorporates a federalist general view of governance and politics – one in which citizens view fellow citizens as partners in the nation’s federated union – this general state of the citizenry is not helpful.

More specifically, this blog promotes this federalist view and for that view to be viable, people need to agree, to a significant degree, on what is objective truth.  And for that to take hold, there must be sources of information generally accepted as reliable.  Since the years of the Enlightenment, Western civilization has looked to science as an important source of such truth. 

Here, this posting visits the science of economics and “asks” a pair of honored economists, the above cited Banerjee and Duflo, as to the standing economists enjoy – or suffer through – as being truth sources among the American people.  In doing so, this posting provides an interview format in which this blogger will offer questions he believes the Nobel Prize winners answer in their book, Good Economics for Hard Times. 

Of course, this is an imagined interview in which this blogger selects passages from the book to answer the questions he is posing.

 

Question:  Much has been said about the current political environment and most of it has not been positive.  How would you describe the times?

Answer:  “We seem to be back in the Dickensian world of Hard Times, with the haves facing off against the increasingly alienated have-nots, with no resolution in sight.”[4]

Question:  And in terms of governments – particularly the US government – what has been the response of such a “world”?

Answer:  “[N]ations are doing very little to solve the most pressing challenges of our time; they continue to feed the anger and the distrust that polarize us, which makes us even more incapable of talking, thinking together, doing something about them.  It often feels like a vicious cycle.”[5]

Question:  What has been the response of economists to these conditions?

Answer:  “Economists have a lot to say about these big issues.  … What the most recent research has to say, it turns out, is often surprising, especially to those used to the pat answers coming out of TV ‘economists’ and high school textbooks.  It [the research] can shed new light on those debates.”[6]

Question:  You two have been quoted as to the degree in which Americans do not trust what economists have to say.  Can you elaborate?

Answer:  “[Regarding how respondents answered our questions they] tended to be more pessimistic than the economists … Our respondents were also more likely to think the rise of robots and AI would lead to widespread unemployment, and much less likely to think they would create extra wealth to compensate those who lost out. … [But] the key finding is that, overall, the average academic economist thinks very differently from the average American.  Across all twenty questions [we used], there is a gaping chasm of 35 percentage points between how many economists agree with a particular statement and how many average Americans do.”[7]

Question:  Generally, how has this chasm between economists and the American public affected your view of the well-being of the American nation?

Answer:  “From this, it seems a large part of the general public has entirely stopped listening to economists about economics. …

The … goal [of our effort] is to share some of [economists’] expertise and reopen a dialogue about the most urgent and divisive topics of our times.

            For that, we need to understand what undermines trust in economists.”[8]

Question:  How, generally, do economists share your concerns?

Answer:  “The Economist magazine once computed just how far the IMF’s [International Monetary Fund’s] forecasts were off on average over the period 2000-2014.  For two years from the time of prediction (say, the growth rate in 2014 predicted in 2012), the average forecast error was 2.8 percentage points.  That’s somewhat better than if they had chosen a random number between … 2 percent and 10 percent every year, but about as bad as just assuming a constant growth rate of 4 percent.  We suspect these kinds of things contribute substantially to the general skepticism of economics.

            Another big factor that contributes to the trust gap is that academic economists hardly ever take time to explain the often complex reasoning behind their more nuanced conclusions. …  Today’s media culture does not naturally allow a space for subtle or long-winded explanations.”[9]

 

Let this blogger retake the helm.  What seems to be at the heart of this state is the nature of the social sciences, not just economics. 

For one thing, as J. Robert Rossman and Mathew D. Duerden point out, each person is unique, and if a science sets out to explain why humans behave the way they do, the number of factors are basically overwhelming.[10]  Even at the group level of analysis, too many things – mostly unpredicted – come into play.

          Comparing economists to physicists and engineers, Banerjee and Duflo state, “Economists are more like plumbers; we solve problems with a combination of intuition grounded in science, some guesswork aided by experience, and a bunch of pure trial and error.”[11]  And they add, they, economists, get things wrong regularly.

          So, where does all this lack of certitude leave civics teachers or those counting on the social sciences to provide truth?  It leaves them, according to these economists, with a reality similar to how medicine leaves people; that is with good guesses based on factual claims that solicit enough faith to justify courses of action.

And that surely outperforms mere ungrounded intuition, random guesswork, or other forms of prognostication.  The next posting will add to this review of economic “truth” and how it can be better directed toward the needs of a federated citizenry.  With that, one would benefit by relying on social science findings, at least as one compares them to other sources of information.

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[1] Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times (New York, NY:  Public Affairs, 2019), 1.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Robert Gutierrez, “Who to Trust,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, accessed December 2, 2023, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2021_02_14_archive.html.

[4] Banerjee and Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times, 2.

[5] Ibid., 2-3.

[6] Ibid., 3.

[7] Ibid., 4.

[8] Ibid., 4-5.

[9] Ibid., 6.

[10] J. Robert Rossman and Mathew D. Duerden, Designing Experiences (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 2019).

[11] Banerjee and Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times, 7.