Prologue
On February 6 of this year, the Secretary-Treasurer of
the American Economic Association (AEA) sent the following email to the members
of the Association:
In October 2017
Alvin E. Roth formed an Ad Hoc Committee to Consider a Code of Professional
Conduct for Economists, and charged it with evaluating various aspects of
professional conduct, including those which stifle diversity in Economics. The
ad hoc committee, composed of John Campbell (chair), Marianne Bertrand,
Pascaline Dupas, Benjamin Edelman, and
Matthew D. Shapiro discussed an interim report and draft code with the AEA Executive Committee at
its meeting on January 4, 2018, and provided an update to the AEA membership at
the Annual Business Meeting on January 5 in Philadelphia. The interim report
and draft code are now ready and available for viewing and comment by the AEA
membership at large, and the Executive Committee encourages your participation
and assistance in bringing these items ahead to final versions.
The ad hoc
committee's interim report is available here:The draft Code of Professional Conduct is available here:
https://www.aeaweb.org/resources/member-docs/draft-code-of-conduct
To offer comments on either or both items, please use the link below before March 15, 2018:
https://www.aeaweb.org/comments/code-of-conduct/?token=faSyK6QDtnirZ6faYFs7Y33R3d9H5QEE
My Comment
When I began the study of economics, almost seventy years
ago, as a young adolescent, almost everyone seemed to take it for granted that
full respect for individual rights, including property rights, as called for by
the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, would inevitably result in a
society in which greedy capitalists drove the wages of the great mass of people
down to or below minimum subsistence, while lengthening the hours of work to
the maximum possible, and imposing nightmarish working conditions.
Even today such are the beliefs of the great majority of
people. This becomes clear simply by asking what most people believe would
happen if there were no pro-union or minimum wage laws, and no maximum hours or
child labor laws.
Now, today, we can observe both in the “Interim
Report” on considering a code of professional conduct and in
the “Draft
AEA Code of Conduct” how much
the intellectual horizon of the economics profession, at least as represented
by the AEA, has shriveled. It has gone from concern with world-shaking,
life-and-death issues to concern with insignificant trivia.
Such questions and concerns as whether or
not capitalism exploits the average worker have been replaced with such
questions and concerns as “Ending harassment”—sexual harassment (p. 5 of the “Interim
Report”). Not even rape, mind you, (which is against the law and severely
punished, and is attended to by the police and prosecutors, not economists)—but
sexual harassment, which can mean
something as small as a man repeatedly asking a woman to go out with him
despite her repeated refusals. This is what economists are now to be concerned
with.
This is not to be the only concern of
economists. They are also to be concerned with “creating a professional
environment with equal opportunity and equal treatment for all economists,
regardless of age, gender, race, …” and so on and on ad nauseam. (The only thing missing is an enumeration of the
alleged 63 genders.)
Such lists are intended to prove one’s
acceptance of “diversity.” Yes, there is diversity—in utterly irrelevant
respects. There is virtually no diversity in ideas and theories. True diversity would mean such things as making
the ideas and theories of Ludwig von Mises a standard part of the discussion
instead of ignoring them.
The
“Interim Report” urges what is implicitly a program of spying, which it calls “Monitoring and reporting on climate.” For example, observing
and quantifying “the extent to which there is unproductive
aggressiveness in economics or its subfields.” (p. 4.)
Enough of the “Interim Report.”
The “Draft AEA Code of Conduct” calls for,
among other things, “the disclosure of conflicts of interest.” This language
leaves the door wide open for any Marxist to claim that if his opponent
advocates a policy of any kind that protects the property rights of the rich,
and at the same time is himself “rich” or in the employ of the “rich,” he is
dishonest, guided by his alleged “class interest” rather than considerations of
truth or falsehood.
The “Draft” repeats verbatim the language
it believes establishes “diversity” credentials.
A paragraph earlier, it writes of “the “perfect
freedom of economic discussion.” This “freedom” is apparently to be established
by an environment of spying and fear, as called for in the “Interim Report.” In
addition, the document totally ignores the violations of the freedom of
discussion that go on, on college and university campuses across the country,
in which student thugs forcibly prevent speakers from speaking.
The motive of the “Interim Report” and the
“Code” is not any legitimate concern with advancing the state of economics, but
rather it is the very illegitimate and downright evil motive of gaining power
over the economics profession, by imposing a reign of fear on economists, who
will have to be concerned with whether or not they are violating the code,
which they might do simply by offending someone.
If this code, or anything remotely like it,
is adopted, I for one will resign from the American Economic Association, which
I will then regard as just one more group dedicated to political “correctness”
rather than to knowledge and truth. Indeed, I would then think of the AEA as an
organization of such small mindedness and so laughable as to deserve a
membership comprised of nothing but clones of Saturday Night Live’s “Church
Lady,” indeed, of Church Lady’s maiden aunt.
In any event, I will never allow any “Big
Sister” to watch me.
