On our sister website, Law and Liberty, I have a review of Robert Skidelsky’s last book, What’s Wrong With Economics. I was unimpressed by the book. It looks to me like an attempt to build a straw man out of modern economics, which is blamed by Skidelsky for, of course, “neoliberal” policies.
The book is strongly idoelogical but, leaving ideology aside for a minute, I was amazed by the view of the social sciences Lord Skidelsky proposes.
He
is apparently incapable of understanding the pursuit of social science as something different from policy punditry. It is revealing that Skidelsky is puzzled by a quote from Milton Friedman, who charmingly described himself as “somewhat of a schizophrenic”: “On the one hand, I was interested in science qua science, and I have tried—successfully, I hope—not to let my ideological viewpoints contaminate my scientific work. On the other, I felt deeply concerned with the course of events and I wanted to influence them so as to enhance human freedom.” Some economists, political scientists, or philosophers may enter their fields because of their political vision of how the world should be improved. Yet it does not mean that they do not try to challenge their own opinions about the facts. Nor does it mean that they may not be, in pursuing their studies, interested merely in understanding how or why a particular phenomenon happened. Friedman honestly described a difficult navigation which is hardly exclusive to the economist. (Consider a Democratic reporter at the Republican National Convention, for instance.)
The review is here.
READER COMMENTS
Vivian Darkbloom
Sep 8 2020 at 11:26am
In your review, you wrote:
“(Friedman)…invented (as a war measure in the 1940s) taxation by withholding before the wage was paid.”
This overstates the case of Friedman as “inventor” by some margin. Friedman was at Treasury at the time the wartime withholding tax created. However, Friedman was far from the “inventor” of wage tax withholding. In Friedman’s own telling, he was one of a small group at Treasury who worked on the technical problem. He also stated that the withholding tax would have been initiated with or without his participation.
Withholding at source was not unheard of before WWII. However, in the context of the WWII victory tax (which was not an “invention”), I think more credit should be given to Professor Albert G. Hart of Iowa State University and to the Treasury’s General Counsel Randolph Paul for pushing withholding on wages as they are paid as a better alternative to paying taxes in advance as was the original “Ruml Plan” proposal.
David Henderson
Sep 8 2020 at 2:42pm
I agree with Vivian’s comment above.
But other than that, this is a first-rate review, beautifully written.
By the way, I invited Skidelsky to sit at our breakfast table at the Mont Pelerin meetings at Hoover in January. He accepted. Nice man. I wish I had known more about his book; if I had, I would have tried to draw him out.
Daniel Klein
Sep 8 2020 at 10:04pm
Alberto’s review is really great.
I guess we should give Skidelsky the benefit of the doubt and suppose he is ignorant of the studies of the lefty preponderance in the economics profession, not only by party voting and registration but also policy positions.
New results coming soon should put an utter end to the myths.
Should.
Comments are closed.