By Gabriel Martinez, Mar 2, 2009 in Musings
Nearly all knowledge is valuable for its own sake (and nearly all knowledge has practical implications). The distinction between Liberal and Useful, as Newman says in Discourse V, lies more in what we do with knowledge than in its own nature.
So we might study Medicine because of the sheer pleasure of the thing, but most of us would study it because of its usefulness to ourselves and to others. Is economics like that? In a previous post I conceded that "the ordinary business of life" may be studied for practical reasons, but nonetheless it is most often studied for the sheer intellectual joy of producing beauty. I would argue, furthermore, that Economics, studied rightly, is particularly good at producing intellectual leaders who are eminently teachable and who have experienced the ascent of the soul that Gerson identified as characteristics of the educated person. Often enough, economics produces techies, but we (economists) are not terribly satisfied with that kind of graduate.
If not quite like Medicine, then, perhaps Economics is more like Physics. Like physicists, economists yearn for elegant, simple descriptions of what we can observe, feel, and touch. Then we would expect from Economics precise and empirically verifiable explanations and predictions, we would hold that its findings are true in the very limited sphere of its competence, and we would ask from it a suitable humility in the face of the higher truths presented to us by other disciplines. Yes, … but human action is much too varied to be this simple (as an example, consider the wide range of forecasts for GDP, inflation, and unemployment found in the minutes of a Federal Open Market Committee meeting).
Is Economics, then, more like History? Should we expect it to face a morass of facts and events and modestly, carefully, patiently, present to us a plausible explanation based on evidence—not perfect evidence—drawn from every relevant angle of the human experience, with the appropriate recognition of the limitations of its methodology? Yes, this rings true about Economics. But there's also an undeniably practical side to the thing. As AC Pigou said in the Introduction to his Economics of Welfare,
I would add one word for any student beginning economic study who may be discouraged by the severity of the effort which the study, as he will find it exemplified here, seems to require of him. The complicated analyses which economists endeavour to carry through are not mere gymnastic. They are instruments for the bettering of human life. The misery and squalor that surround us, the injurious luxury of some wealthy families, the terrible uncertainty overshadowing many families of the poor—these are evils too plain to be ignored. By the knowledge that our science seeks it is possible that they may be restrained. Out of the darkness light! To search for it is the task, to find it perhaps the prize, which the "dismal science of Political Economy" offers to those who face its discipline.
An intriguing thought: is Economics like Theology? Without losing sight of the infinite distance between their subject matters, both disciplines study something that is very interesting in itself … and knowledge of which has immense implications for human welfare or happiness (of very different kinds, I hasten to add). If so, we would expect economics to be diligent and humble in applying its methods – even as it is aware of their utter inadequacy in the face of its subject matter. We would demand from it a special fidelity to the ideal of knowledge as its own goal, even at the risk of derision (“angels dancing on pins” “two-handed economists”). And at the same time we would expect it to produce practical wisdom and useful insight for daily living.
Perhaps Economics is like all of these disciplines. As the well-known quote goes,
the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher–in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician (Keynes on Marshall, Essays on Biography).
