How can a Wittgensteinian language-game be fitted to human reality? Conversely put, how can human reality be made to fit into a Procrustean language-game such as "economic science"? The idealist "separation" (Plato's chorismos denounced by Nicholas of Cusa) of Subject and Object - starting from Berkeley through to Mach and then the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus - is the fateful precursor of Neoclassical Economics. The genealogy of this forma mentis is illustrated in and exemplified by Lionel Robbins's epistemological mise en scene of economics as "the science of choice". Yet far from being scientific, the Robbinsian definition of the economic problem rapidly degenerates into logical formalism, into yet another language-game far removed from the reality of human pro-duction. Any economics worthy of the name must become a "critique of political economy", that is to say, it must acknowledge its political essence, and then seek to overcome the real antagonism of its object of study - the capitalist economy and the society of capital. Cheers.
Even the wildest dream is a fact as much as
any other. If our dreams were more regular, more connected,
more stable, they would also have more practical
importance for
us. In our waking hours the relations of
the elements to one another are immensely amplified
in
comparison with what they were in our dreams.
(p.11)
The ego is not
sharply marked off, its limits are very indefinite
and
arbitrarily displaceable. Only by failing to
observe this
fact, and by unconsciously narrowing those limits,
while
at the same time we enlarge them, arise, in the
conflict
of points of view, the metaphysical difficulties
met with
in this connexion. (p.13) (Mach, “Antimetaphysik”
in The Analysis of Sensations)
Mach’s theory of sensations is pure
Schopenhauer. It contains therefore an implicit and stinging critique of
Kantian metaphysics. To be sure, already the Kantian “thing in itself” had removed
the relation between Subject and Object to one of mere “transcendence”, to the
realm of “idealism” – however “critical” Kant intended these to be. And yet
Kant’s notion of “intuition”, although it made human objective reality “unknowable”,
still retained that indissoluble material link between human thought and “its”
object – between fact and concept, between Object and Subject. The Kantian
universe is still Galileo-Newtonian in the sense that it is something that can
be com-prehended and en-compassed by human beings through the faculty of Reason
by means of which the universe acquires an “order” and a “reason” that can be “uni-versally”
recognized by all human beings – that can lead to a convergence or con-sensus
over ultimate human goals and values. It is not that dreams are neglected
because they have less “practical importance to us as scientists!” than waking reality: rather, it is because they
have less importance “for the business of scientists!” The con-nection –
empirical! – between the rise of capitalism and that of science is undeniable.
For us, therefore, the world does not consist of
mysterious entities, which by their interaction
with
another, equally mysterious entity, the ego,
produce
sensations, which alone are accessible. For us,
colors,
sounds, spaces, times, . . are provisionally the
ultimate
30 THE ANALYSIS OF SENSATIONS
Elements [sensations], whose given connexion it is
our business to
investigate. 1
Such empirical formalism simply obliterates
the role of human goals in the pursuit of science, the search for a shared
reality of human values.
With Mach and then Wittgenstein, Kantian
rationalism gives way to pure empiricist positivism. There is no “substance”
behind concepts; there are no “things” behind facts; there is no “reality”
behind sensations. The task of science is merely to con-nect these sensations
or facts by means of hypotheses whose guiding principle must be that of “economy”.
But anyone who takes his stand as I
do on the
economic function of science, according to which nothing is
important
except what can be observed or is a datum for us, and
everything
hypothetical, metaphysical and superfluous, is to be
eliminated, must reach
the same conclusion. (fn1 at pp.27-8)
But what is a “datum”? Mach is deceived by
the “given-ness” of facts as data, which are not “given” at all but “found”
in the sense of “searched for” by the scientist, in-vestigated like “vestigia”
(tracks), hunted for. The tragedy of positivism is to forget the “activity”
(auctor, auctoritas), the exercise of decision and power behind the data or
facts (from facere, human action) that are “found” or ascertained. Certainly,
anything “superfluous” can be neglected – because it is “superfluous”. But what
is superfluous relates to a
particular line of research – and then we must ask, “Who decides what to
research?” Similarly, the hypothetical cannot be abandoned – because all
science starts with “hypotheses”. And the drives, the human needs that lead to
hypotheses can reflect meta-physical goals. What, then, can be “the economic function of science”?
Robbins:
But when time and the means for achieving ends
are limited and capable of alternative application,
then behaviour necessarily assumes the form of choice.
Every act which involves time and scarce means for
the achievement of one end involves the relinquishment
of their use for the achievement of another. It
14 SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE OH.
has an economic aspect.1
But economic science cannot prescribe what
particular choice an individual must make “scientifically” for it to be “economic”,
because from an individual’s point of view the “choice” cannot be dictated by
considerations other than the “choice” itself. Given a “choice”, its
implementation is a matter for engineering, not for “economics”. Clearly then,
economics intervenes only when individual choices are in conflict (scarcity)
with the choices of other individuals (Hayek on Walrasian equilibrium). There
must be the possibility of “exchange” of “goods”. But this presumes the prior
existence of “goods” as individual pro-ducts – hence, the division of social
labour into “individual labours” – and then the prior existence of property
rights.
There is a tautology of choice here in that
choice is reduced to science, and an oxymoron in the sense that “choice” cannot
be scientific and “science” is “objective”, that is, it is independent of “choice”.
This applies to societies as well – because it is impossible to determine what
the “scientific” way of maximizing choices is without first knowing what these “choices”
have “in common” – their “interest”, perhaps a “market mechanism” to reach “equilibrium”
(Hobbes’s paradox – how can self-interested individuals agree to form a society
or set up a market?)
Choice necessarily involves “scarcity” –
that is why a “choice” must be made. But this “choice” is not “economic”
because there are no parameters by which the “choice” can be graded apart from,
outside of, the “choice” itself! If I specify what my parameters for my “choice”
are…. then I do not have a “choice”! My choice becomes a mere “calculus”. Both
logic and mathematics are just calculi that do not involve “choice”. Choice is
ineluctably “political”, it involves many “individuals”. But then economics
must become “political economy” and
can never be a “science of choice”.
Economics is the science which studies human behaviour
as a relationship between ends and scarce
means which have alternative uses.1
1 Cp. Menger, Orundsätze
der Vólkswirtschaftslehre, lte aufl·, pp. 51-70;
Mises, Die Gemeinwirtschaft, pp. 98 seq.;
Fetter, Economic Principles, ch. i.;
Strigl, Die ò'lconomischen Katagorien und die
Organisation der Wirtschaft,
passim; Mayer, op. cit. (Robbins, p.15)
By rejecting the “classificatory”
definition of economics, which refers to “material welfare”, Robbins espouses
the “analytical” formalism of Mach and Wittgenstein (p.16). But by so doing he
completely dis-embodies economics,
divorcing it even from its most fundamental political
element – one that even Menger could not ignore: - the exchange of goods (p.16-7).
One may realise completely the implications
for oneself of a decision to spend money in this way
rather than in that way. But it is not so easy to trace
the effects of this decision on the whole complex
of "scarcity relationships"—on wages, on profits, on
prices, on rates of capitalisation, and the organisation
of production. On the contrary, the utmost effort of
abstract thought is required to devise generalisations
which enable us to grasp them. For this reason
economic analysis has most utility in the exchange
economy. It is unnecessary in the isolated economy.
It is debarred from any but the simplest generalisations
by the very raison d'etre of a communist
society. (Robbins cites Mises’s Gemeinwirtschaft,
p.18)
[I]t is clear that the phenomena
of the exchange economy itself can only be explained
by going behind such
relationships and invoking the
operation of those laws of choice which are best seen
when contemplating the behaviour of the isolated
individual.2(p19)
For it is not
the materiality of even
material means of gratification
which gives them their status as economic goods;
it is their relation to valuations. It
is their form
rather than their substance which is
significant. The
"Materialist" conception of economics therefore misrepresents
the science as we know it. (p.20)
Economics is not concerned at
all with any ends as such. It is concerned with ends
in so far as they affect the disposition of means. It
takes the ends as given in scales of relative valuation,
and enquires what consequences follow in regard to
certain aspects of behaviour. (P.29)
It is obvious that this ends-means
definition of economics can stand its ground if it breaches the condition of universality
that Robbins seeks to ascribe to it: if it is empirically and positivistically
confined to the effects of human behavior under specific conditions of exchange
– but not to the totality of
exchanges - then economics becomes pure engineering or “technique” as Robbins
calls it in this chapter on “Ends and Means”. But if it seeks to extend to all
combinations of ends and means, then it is clear that “economic science” must
also be able to prescribe the ends that are “economic” or “affordable” – which contradicts
his categorical exclusion of “ends” from economic analysis earlier in the
chapter: Robbins is then forced to amend his definition to include not just the
choice of scarce means with regard to known
or given ends, but rather also the
choice of combinations of all ends
and means:
[Th]e problem
of technique arises when there
is one end and a
multiplicity of means, the problem of economy when
both the ends and the means are multiple.1(p.31)
In
fact, the problem arises when the ends are “given”, not when there is only one
end! If the ends being pursued by agents are known or “given” (as in Walrasian
equilibrium where utility schedules are common knowledge), then the economic
problem does not exist and the “solution” is pure engineering – “technical”.
But where the ends are not discernible, then the problem becomes at once
political and economic – it becomes political
economy, never “economic science”!
Robbins is confusing a technical problem –
the choice of appropriate means to given ends - with the essentially political
nature of “economics”: the social relations behind capitalist production. This
is why, from the piecemeal viewpoint
of exchange transactions only, where it remains a “technical” tool, his
definition of economic science misses out on the essential political characteristic of capitalism – the accumulation of social
power as value, as command over living labour by means of its “exchange” with
dead labour. It is the impossibility
of this “exchange” that inspired Marx’s critique. Thus, “value” in economics –
what lies behind market “prices” and is embodied in “money” – is an entity that
cannot have a “scientific” or technical meaning, but one that is intrinsically
political. His failure to understand this vital point is why Robbins entirely
misunderstands the function of money, leaving out entirely its role as a “store
of value” in a capitalist economy:
Money-making in the normal sense of the term is
merely the intermediate stage between a sale and a
purchase. The procuring of a flow of money from the
sale of one's services or the hiring out of one's property
is not an end per se. The money is clearly a means to
ultimate purchase. It is sought, not for itself, but for
the things on which it may be spent—whether these
be the constituents of real income now or of real
income in the future. Money-making in this sense
means securing the means for the achievement of all
those ends which are capable of achievement by the
aid of purchasable commodities. Money
as such is
obviously merely a means—a medium of
exchange,
an instrument of calculation. For society, from the
static point of view, the presence of more or less money
is irrelevant. For the individual it is relevant only
in so far as it serves his ultimate objectives. Only the
miser, the psychological monstrosity, desires an infinite
accumulation of money. (P.30)
Money is much more than just a means of exchange and a unit of account –
“a means of calculation” as Robbins clumsily puts it. Money is above all a
store of value: it is the necessary expression of political relations
pertaining to the exchange of living with dead labour (pro-ducts or goods or
commodities). And the aim of capitalism is precisely “the infinite accumulation
of money” as the embodiment of political power through the “exchange” of dead
labour with dead labour! The miser Robbins has in mind – “the psychological
monstrosity” – intends precisely to reach the Nirvana that is “the satisfaction
of all needs” through the renunciation (Schopenhauer’s Entsagung) of present consumption! This
is the crucial point behind the theory of capital in both Menger and then
Bohm-Bawerk.
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