Digressions&Impressions

On David Graeber Against Adam Smith

[1] Adam Smith…was determined to overturn the conventional wisdom of his day. Above all, [2] he objected to the notion that money was a creation of government. [3] In this, Smith was the intellectual heir of the Liberal tradition of philosophers like John Locke, who had argued that government begins in the need to protect private property and operated best when it tried to limit itself to that function. Smith expanded on the argument, insisting that [4] property, money and markets not only existed before political institutions but [4*] were the very foundation of human society. [5] It followed that insofar as government should play any role in monetary affairs, it should limit itself to guaranteeing the soundness of the currency. [6] It was only by making such an argument that he could insist that economics is itself a field of human inquiry with its own principles and laws-that is, as distinct from, say ethics or politics. Smith's argument is worth laying out in detail because it is, as I say, [7] the great founding myth of the discipline of economics.—David Graeber Debt: The first 5000 Years, 24-25 [numbers added for ease of discussion--ES]

Regular readers know I am an admirer of Graeber's Debt (recall here, here, and here). The book offers a bold vision in which geographically and temporally distant evidence is brought to bear on central issues in political economy. In addition, it alerted me to the significance of the revival of interest among anthropologists in what we may call culturally embedded and shaped human universals, and a willingness to avoid the easy relativism characteristic of much ethnography (and history). Today's post is a bit more nit-picky than my previous ones on Graeber and focuses on a subsidiary issue in the work. It's not an irrelevant issue, however, because Graeber's criticism of Smith frame the work.+ Okay, with that out of the way, let me get started.

The core of Graeber’s argument turns on an extended fictional description, we may call it a thought experiment, of the origin of currency out of the inconveniences of barter. The description of a tribe of “hunters or shepherds” (WN 1.2.3) is introduced at the start of the Wealth of Nations, by Smith to explain the origin and benefits of the division of labor. Graeber has good fun showing that this “faraway fantasy” seems “to be an amalgam of North American Indians and Central Asian pastoral nomads;” (25) the example exhibits “a tendency to slip from imaginary savages to small-town shopkeepers.” (26) As Graeber correctly notes, according the thought experiment, “everyone will inevitably start stockpiling something they figure that everyone else is likely to want. This has a paradoxical effect, because at a certain point, rather than making that commodity less valuable (since everyone already has some) it becomes more valuable (because it becomes, effectively, currency).” (26) After quoting Smith extensively, Graeber helpfully summarizes the upshot of  Smith’s narrative, “Using irregular metal ingots is easier than barter, but wouldn't standardizing the units-say, stamping pieces of metal with uniform designations guaranteeing weight and fineness, in different denominations-make things easier still? Clearly it would, and so was coinage born.” (27) Before we accuse Graeber of being unfair to Smith, he explicitly recognizes that Smith quickly turns to how standardized coinage into an instance of abuses of state power, which with its control over  the mind can defraud other creditors easily. So, there is ample evidence for Graeber’s claims [1-7] in Smith’s text.*

Now, an alert reader may well be suspicious of the fact that I am calling Smith’s treatment of the origin of money a “thought experiment.” My point in doing so is, indeed, to discount Smith’s commitment to the “faraway fantasy” as articulating the (hypothetical) origin of money and property. There are three mutually supporting reasons for this that draw on significant commitments of Smith articulated later in Wealth of Nations.

First, the whole set up of the thought experiment contradicts Smith’s four-stage stadial theory of the development of civilizations. In it, there is a natural progression from (i) a savage stage  of hunter-gathering-fishing; (ii) shepherding by nomadic tribes; (iii) sedentary agriculture; to (iv) commercial society characterized by trading. (WN 5.1.a.3–8) These stages are akin to Weberian ideal types in which the whole order and practices of a society are characterized by its predominant economic organization. To be sure, the four stages do not necessarily follow each other and they can succeed each other out of sequence. Smith also allows that in the territory of a large state the stages coincide. As Graeber notes, it is a very peculiar that Smith seems to mix many different kinds of societies in his example.  And a critic of Smith may see in the contradiction outlined in this paragraph as a problem for Smith; my talk of 'a thought experiment' may seem overly charitable using later passages of Wealth of Nations to interpret earlier ones. But it is worth nothing that Smith had already called attention to his embrace of something like a stadial theory in the Introduction of his work (where he draws a prominent contrast between the misery of "savage nations" of fishers and hunters and the "abundance" of commercial society) and (less prominently) in chapter 1 ("progress of society.")

Now Smith does claim that some medium of exchange is adopted by "every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labor." (WN. 1.4.2) Of course, not  everybody is prudent, but even so Smith is here committed to the claim that some medium(s) of exchange is likely to exist in every society. This matters because Smith can be read as claiming that government originates in the (second) shepherding stage where the rich cattle/herd owners institute government in order to defend themselves against the poor as a kind of a protection racket. (WN 5.1.a.15) ISo, that Smith would agree with Locke that there is property and money prior to the formation of government. While Smith is not a contractarian, in this sense he is a Lockean (as I have also argued). And Graeber is surely right in thinking that for much of human history government is really an instrument of the rich and powerful to subjugate the poor and powerless.

Second, however, when Smith address the question of the origin of government and property, Smith does not claim that money and property must proceed government. Rather he claims that "Among nations of hunters," [the first stage], "as there is scarce any property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days’ labour, so there is seldom any established magistrate or any regular administration of justice." (WN 5.1.b.2) So, while Smith thinks it is likely that property will precede the existence of government, he does not think property must precede government. Rather, he thinks that most of the time people in the hunting stage are so poor and relatively equal, there is little reason to expect the rise of a regular government in it. (That is, he allows the existence of some authority and hierarchy, but not full blooded government.) He makes the exact same point at the end of the very long paragraph (which articulates his narrative of the origins of government): "The acquisition of valuable and extensive property [in a shepherding stage], therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary."

So, Smith's position is that in the conditions akin to the Lockean state of nature, government is possible. But this means that for Smith it is explicitly and entirely possible that government can precede the existence of property and the development of a medium of exchange. Rather than seeing a contradiction in two strands of Wealth of Nations, it makes a lot more sense to see that by Smith's lights, the thought experiment does not entail anything about the origin of the institution of adopting a medium of exchange and (later) an official government approved currency. Rather the thought experiment is meant to illustrate  why such institutions (medium of exchange/currency, etc.) would be (to speak informally) more welfare enhancing (Graeber uses 'efficient' in his summary of Smith--that's fine, too, if one recognizes it is an informal notion). This is why it shows up in all societies. Of course, Graeber may legitimately claim that Smith's stadial theory is out of date. But that does not touch upon their present debate.

I promised three reasons. For the third, we need to move back to the very first chapter of Wealth of Nations, which precedes the thought example that Graeber criticizes and may, thus, be naively presupposed in its  interpretation. I have in mind this famous passage:

Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens. (WN 1.2.2)

Now, the main point here is that trade presupposes mutual interest. And nothing I'll say will undercut that. In addition, as Sam Fleischacker has emphasized, Smith is emphasizing here the significance  of mutual persuasion in any trade. It is worth asking what happens to Smith's framework when markets become anonymous, but that's for another time.** However, for present purposes the key point is the final claim--that exchange and begging take place among citizens and so within a political framework. The significance of Smith's point may be missed if one forgets that in the eighteenth century there was an extremely limited (male) franchise based on wealth. So, while Smith does not reduce market and begging relations to their political context, he does not ignore these either.

Let me sum up because I have gone on long enough. Where does this leave Graeber's seven theses? Leaving aside [1], which is irrelevant for present purposes, we have undermined [1],[4] and [6]. I think Graeber is right about [2]; it's clear Smith thinks that money need not be the creation of government. But I don't think Graeber can show that Smith thinks money is never the creation of government.

With regard to [3], I have shown that Graeber is right that government generally (! begins in the need to protect private property (and in this sense is a Lockean). But it does not follow that Smith thinks government should limit itself to this task. As the one-time Chicago economists, Jacob Viner and George Stigler already showed, Smith's task for government are rather expansive, including  (inter alia) the maintenance of a standing arm and the martial spirit of nation (WN 5.1.f.60) the seting up of roads, tolls, canals (WN 5.1.d.5) primarily to be paid for by progressive taxes on wealthy; the maintenance of public health (WN 5.1.f.60); provide for public education for the poor (WN 5.1.f.55); and even imposition of prudential building codes to prevent spread of fire (WN 2.2.94, while defending his financial regulation).

With regard to [5], it is possible that Graeber is right that for Smith "government should play any role in monetary affairs, it should limit itself to guaranteeing the soundness of the currency." I don't think this is right. If anything, much of Book 2 of Wealth of Nations is a critical treatment of the financial sector--Smith thought it should be regulated carefully including the details of money creation by banks (but about that see my book). It is also possible, of course, that Graeber is right about [7]; that regardless of Smith's own views, Smith is the source of a myth that became constitutive of the way economics ended up understanding itself and its object of study and the nature of its knowledge. I leave  that question for another day.++

 

The Nothing Noths

 

A few weeks ago, I noted that the Swiftian "the Nothing noths" (Das Nichts nichtet) was not to be found in Pap's official translation of Carnap’s "Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache." In his comments, Gary Ostertag called attention to Peter Geach's (1957) Mental Acts as the origin of "the Nothing noths." I finally had occassion to inspect Geach. Here's what I found:

So an attempt to report that somebody judges nonsense is itself nonsense. A British pupil of Heidegger might say "Nothing noths" in a tone of conviction; assuming that this is nonsense, "he judged that Nothing nothed" would also be nonsense. (We ought rather to say: "he judged that "Nothing noths" was the expression of a truth".)--Mental Acts, p. 10

So rather than Carnap, we find a fictional British pupil of Heidegger. There is, in fact, no mention to Carnap at all here or in context.  (The only explicit mention of Carnap in the book (on p. 91) that I could locate is actually rather critical.)

It is easy to imagine how the phrase struck and became attributed to Carnap in English. I have found quite a few places where this is done without any reservation in recent scholarship. (I am not linking to any in particular because my point here is not to play gotcha.) But I am unsure who was first to do so.

One final thought. The "Nothing noths" is rhetorical genius. But as I note it is Swiftian in character; it's plainly satirical and that's the role it plays in the history of analytic philosophy. Yet, it is not obvious it does full justice to the existentialist, even nihilist overtones of "Das Nichts nichtet.” That may be nonsense, or not, but is not a laughing matter.

 

 

Here's a simple way we can Improve Analytical Philosophy: Help Others Improve Their Arguments

I think there are a number of improvements to widespread practice (no I won't be linking to examples -- feel free to just disbelieve or disagree with me if you want!) that would be relatively easy to achieve. I mean to advocate that we all in our own work implement these changes, and aid others in doing so...there are a great many places where it seems to me that people ought weaken their conclusions given the kind of evidence they are able to bring to bear...It would be nice for more writing to make it apparent what are unsupported premises, and what the epistemic relations among various claims made in the paper are, for instance....

I feel about the rigor of analytic philosophy just as Gandhi reportedly felt about Western Civilisation: I think it would be a good idea.--Liam Kofi Bright "Upholding Standards."

Liam's post has been making the rounds (see here on Daily Nous). As he recognizes, his proposal -- that "we ought hold ourselves to stricter argumentative standards than we often do, in our philosophical research manuscripts or public-forum presentations" -- ought not be controversial because it appeals to already existing standards. (Liam helpfully posted a picture of Timothy Williamson.) Unsurprisingly, then, Liam invokes our shared commitment to "clarity."

Now it is a bit of a shame that Liam did not pause to comment on the fact that despite the widespread embrace of quality (I have commented on the way this rhetoric can become self-serving), what we mean by quality often differs.+ Let me offer two high church examples: first, recall that with 'clarity,' Carnap meant to call attention to a property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages. It means to capture a kind of demand for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms. (It's also a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.) Second, by contrast, early Quine thought that clarity just involved intelligibility. But, in later years, Quine thought that his program of regimentation of scientific language was a way to reveal clarity about the 'ontology' of the sciences  and he came to think of clarity as a more general theoretical virtue of a system. (Despite the fact that the previous paragraph draws merely on a blog post I have high degree of confidence that I am right about this, although I am also confident that my presentation lacks sufficient hedging and precision.)

Liam's own use is of a third kind (although undoubtedly has Carnapian sensibilities). We may call, Liam's approach to clarity,  a mixture of adhering to argumentative standards and truth in advertising. As he writes, (i) "stating one's position and argumentative moves; where possible ensuring one's premises validly entail one's conclusion, and where that is not possible some clear (and clearly presented)* reason to think that the truth of one's premises raises the probability of the truth of one's conclusion" and (ii) "where one cannot provide a good argument for stronger claims about how the world actually is this should be clearly marked, and the claim should be defended and understood as consequently of weaker logical force." Rather than farming this out to referees -- Liam is rightfully suspicious of imposing norms on others -- he calls for "widespread voluntary self-change."

Unfortunately, self-policing is, in this instance, not a promising strategy because (a) on the margin, the incentives of our academic credit economy push in the other direction--caution and modesty are not rewarded. Even Williamson does not live up to Liam's proposed standards: in his modal metaphysics he relies crucially on abduction, which always involves an immodest step toward a conclusion beyond what the evidence strictly supports. Williamson knows this and he hopes that in the "long run" any misstep become (ahh) clear to a community. In addition, Williamson exhibits an unwillingness to adopt logically thinner alternatives (say neutral quantification). (b) On the margin, people are often self-deceived about what they have achieved. (Despite the fact that I know it's possible I am self-deceived, I have 100% confidence in the truth of the previous sentence!) In addition, cautiously argued modesty does not fit the rationale behind (c) our existing philosophical practices [intuition mongering, working through outlandish counter-examples, uncharitable nit-picking, X-PHI, argumentation, etc]; they are much better understood if we understand that on a community level we are really trying to stress-test concepts and positions (and maybe argument-forms). Finally, it is peculiar that Liam offers no evidence that binding ourselves to his approach will lead us to better philosophical territory. After all, if being rigorous is like waiting for civilization, then we're all participants in a Beckett play.**

Be that as it may, there is nothing wrong with aspiring to clarity in any of the three senses mentioned above even if we need to remind ourselves that it often is a pernicious trope by which we attack 'unclear' others. By contrast, I think philosophers should spend a lot more time and effort trying to seek out and develop what's promising and right in other people's views. This is something Liam mentions -- "aid others in doing so" --, but does not really develop. Rather than looking for the knock-down argument against  X, let's focus on what may be promising in X and to supply the missing premise or distinction. If this were a norm it would overcomes our tendency toward self-aggrandizing self-deception and it could fit an academic credit economy, if our contributions to each others work would be factored into our mutual and professional evaluation.*** For all I know, incentivizing helping each other may also make us nicer to work with. (I have modest confidence in the suggestions of this paragraph.)

And in that spirit, I want to close with an observation. At one point Liam writes,

As yet unexplored potential for generating novelty. As noted, I think these standards are not often actually upheld. This means, I think, there is plenty of potential for generating a previously unseen way of looking at things just by formulating things more precisely and carefully drawing out the consequences, or seeing what possibilities are actually left open and compatible with our more firmly held or evidenced beliefs once one systematically avoids over-statement...One way that stricter adherence to standards would actually open up the possibility for more creativity is that it would make it more readily apparent that much more is left open than presently seems, that a lot more strange and wonderful possibilities may yet turn out to be true for all we know.

I like the underlying spirit as well as the insight. Clarity can indeed facilitate creativity and open up new approaches if such approaches would be known and welcomed. But there is nothing in Liam's articulation of clarity that makes either  "the possibility for more creativity" more likely or "make it more readily apparent that much more is left open." After all, when one is working within a paradigm one is taught if not disciplined to ignore alternative avenues. So, for the epistemic pay-offs that Liam wishes for to materialize we need an additional norm (beyond clarity and aiding others): one needs not just to call attention to the strength of evidence or limitations of one's own argument, one needs also to call attention to some of the (subjectively) lower probability approaches that may be alternatives to one's own. Because I suspect most enduring contributions in philosophy have arisen from dogmatic, overconfident folk, I have little confidence in my own suggestion here. But it would be nice if it could be made to work.

On The Political Philosophy of Candide's Earthly Paradise

"I do not know," answered the worthy man, "and I have not known the name of any Mufti, nor of any Vizier. I am entirely ignorant of the event you mention; I presume in general that they who meddle with the administration of public affairs die sometimes miserably, and that they deserve it; but I never trouble my head about what is transacting at Constantinople; I content myself with sending there for sale the fruits of the garden which I cultivate."

Having said these words, he invited the strangers into his house; his two sons and two daughters presented them with several sorts of sherbet, which they made themselves, with Kaimak enriched with the candied-peel of citrons, with oranges, lemons, pine-apples, pistachio-nuts, and Mochacoffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands. After which the two daughters of the honest Mussulman perfumed the strangers' beards.

"You must have a vast and magnificent estate," said Candide to the Turk.

I have only twenty acres," replied the old man; "I and my children cultivate them; our labour preserves us from three great evils--weariness, vice, and want."

Candide, on his way home, made profound reflections on the old man's conversation....

"I know also," said Candide, "that we must cultivate our garden."

"You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle."

"Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, indeed, very ugly, but she became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. They were all, not excepting Friar Giroflee, of some service or other; for he made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.

Pangloss sometimes said to Candide:

"There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts."

"All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."--Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 30 (Conclusion).

It is often well-remembered that Voltaire's Candide satirizes Leibniz's metaphysics and, more broadly, his philosophy. In re-reading it, I had forgotten how often Leibniz himself gets satirized. It is quite ad personam!* It is often less clear what Voltaire may be advocating in this slender work. So, for example, Wikipedia writes that it "leaves unresolved what philosophy the protagonist is to accept in its stead." The problem is exacerbated because basically nearly all the main characters end up being satirized at one moment or another, so one can't really say that one speaks for Voltaire. 

Even so, the closing scene (quoted above) provides quite a few hints of Voltaire's position. First, it is notable that it echoes the opening scene of Candide; this involves Candide being "driven from terrestrial paradise." (Chapter 2) Second, ut operaretur eum is a clear reference to Genesis 3.23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. And this, in turn, is clearly an allusion to Locke's position as developed in his criticism of Filmer in the First Treatise (44-45), and elsewhere. So, Voltaire's Candide embraces the Lockean idea that our role in life is to work and enjoy the fruits of our labors. Of course, the enjoyment is relative; it may just be 'tolerable' as Martin (a more skeptical and manichean philosopher than Pangloss remniscent of Bayle) suggests. But by limiting one's extreme desires for luxury goods, one can enjoy not just the necessities, but even many of the  conveniences of life. This is much is pretty clear from the last two scenes (quoted above).

But I want to make two general observations about the position. First, it is an anti-political stance. This is exemplified by the "worthy" Turk who keeps far from the political machinations in the center and keeps himself ignorant of them. This ignorance is not ridiculed. Those that get involved in politics are a self-selected lot and these are not worthy ("they deserve  to die" even if not all will--there is no full justice on Earth). I want to qualify the claim that it is anti-political as such. Rather it is against grand politics (of the sort we may associate with national politics, international rivalry, imperial ambition etc.) Candide and his friends enter into a "little society," and it must be organized ('design') and run locally.  This fits the larger message that no grand utopian vision -- symbolized by the unreachable El Dorado -- can possibly be achieved in this world (or the next).

For, second, even in a little, local society there is a division of labor. And it is clear this division must be managed. In fact, what is most striking about the little society -- and I had not noticed this before -- is that it is, if not communist, a de facto coop. Voltaire is not defending her commercial society in the way familiar from, say, Locke or Hume (and later  associated, not entirely correctly, with Smith). The individual trader and consumer is not being advocated here. But rather it is the development of a form of civil society, or joint cooperative projects, on a small scale (20 acres, a little plot, etc.) by way of an inclusive division of labor in which each can play its proper role. 

Obviously, there is a lot more to Voltaire's philosophy, including a well known embrace of enlightened kingship. But before we conclude that the public Voltaire would reject this ideal of a society as an anti-political, pacific, joint cooperative project, it is notable that Voltaire's Candide is embracing here (recall) versions of a normative ideal that are more familiar to us as Plato's Socrates's healthy city -- or in Glaucon's phrase (Republic 372d) the "city of Pigs" -- and Smith's system of natural liberty with its true religion. And so not for the first time I am struck by the possibility (in the history of Socratic political theory [recall]) that so many philosophers seem to embrace the same ideal, even though their second best solutions differ widely.  

De Grouchy's Egalitarian Philosophy of Law

In order for the fear of a sentence to be effective and beneficial the sentence must not outrage. Its justice must be perceptible to average reason, and it must especially awaken the conscience, at the same time as it punishes its silence and slumber. But this will not be so (a) if sentences are too strong and instead of inspiring horror against crime, appear barbarous and unjust themselves; (b) if they do not punish the injustices committed by the rich against the poor; (b*) if, when these injustices are not subject to sentences, the laws do not prevent them in other ways; (c) if a judge can arbitrarily harden or soften a sentence; (d) if there are privileges, hereditary, personal or local which offer a legal loophole, direct or indirect. Then the people are tempted to see criminal laws as made against them and in favor of the rich, as the result of an association designed to oppress them. Then they hate more they fear these laws that no longer inform their conscience because they outrage their reason, and this hatred is enough to overcome fear in strong souls and in all those made bitter by the joint feeling of injustice and need.--Sophie de Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, translated by Sandrine Berges, Letter 8.

ln the quoted passage Sophie de Grouchy, whose Letters on Sympathy (hereafter Letters) is attached to her translation of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter TMS) echoes the strategy I attributed to Cesare Becciara's Crimes and Punishment recently. She relies here on a barbarous vs civilized distinction not so much to justify imperialism or cultural superiority, but in order to claim that the Europeans are (often) barbarians. While she agrees with Beccaria that bad law too often fails to deter and (unintentionally perhaps) ends up encouraging law-breaking, she thinks the the main point of law is not so much deterrence (as Beccaria thinks), but rather to help cultivate virtue: "to awaken... conscience." This it does not by imposing morality by, say, the punishment of sin; but rather by leaving people mostly alone and by paying attention to incentives (recall this post): “The incentive to behave unjustly, when it is based on need, is therefore extremely rare in the absence of bad laws,” (Letter 7 [and recall this post for more].) In addition, she favors making the law fairer (about which below), more impartial (by removing discretion (c)), and (again following Beccaria) making punishment more proportionate to harms done--for laws that too harsh fail to deter (see a).

Underlying De Grouchy's vision is the idea that law must be intelligible to those governed by it. (This is not quite in Beccaria, but the idea goes back to Plato's Laws.) Then it can perform its proper function of moral education (awaken...conscience), while simultaneously for its authority rely on the good opinion of those it rules (justice must be perceptible to average reason). She puts this in striking language: "by preserving their natural rights, the social order would put men in the best position to bring about mutual respect." (Letter 8.) If the law offends against ordinary moral sense it will undermine its proper function and creates outrage (“for the fear of a sentence to be effective and beneficial the sentence must not outrage.). If the legal system generates anger the law undermines itself by reducing compliance and undermining virtue, both are needed for social order.*

So far I have emphasized De Grouchy's debts to Beccaria (and Voltaire's commentary on it). But De Grouchy's interest in the way law can facilitate moral equality is distinctive. In fact, in the quoted passage at the top of this post (see b&d), she recognizes that wealth inequality can undermine the rule of law: laws must be fair and not favor the wealth by exempting from the law -- a common feature of feudal society -- or by being biased toward wealth (a common feature of most legal systems in practice.) To be sure Beccaria is not indifferent to wealth inequality; he promotes luxury consumption in order to combat what we may call the Piketty effect: "The pleasures of luxury are not the principal sources of this happiness; though, by preventing the too great accumulation of wealth in few hands, they become a necessary remedy against the too great inequality of individuals, which always increases with the progress of society." (Ch. 32, p. 123; this echoes Hume and Smith.) He is clearly sensitive to the idea that concentrated wealth is bad politically.

Thus, De Grouchy claims that one way to promote a proper rule of law is, then, to reduce inequality directly: “Let us only remove the extreme inequality that puts the poor too far from the rich to be known by them, and the rich too far from the poor to see them, and to let the voice of humanity reach their heart; and then unexpected misfortunes will become rarer and will certainly be mended.” (Letter 8) The comment is made in the context of her discussion of the nature of law, but here, too, she is (and this echoes Adam Smith's TMS) clearly focused on the moral effects of inequality and advocates political and legal action to combat it directly.

 

On the American Malaise; private wealth, public failures

Taken together, all of this suggests that, at best, the United States is wasting time that it, quite frankly, may not have. I know some readers here will think this is all for the best, because they don’t care for both the theory and practice of American leadership. But I submit that global economic and political interconnectedness makes it increasingly difficult to achieve progressive goals within the borders of individual states.

The weaker America’s hand, the more likely we are to get a more minimal variant of liberal order, one with open trade and plenty of multilateralism, but little in the way of ‘baked in’ preferences for human rights and democracy. A China that fills the vacuum will do so as a totalitarian party state—quite likely constituted around individual leaders with cults of personality—and with a hybrid of capitalism and socialism quite different from what liberals or progressives would find attractive. It’s not that the United States should be preparing for an inevitable Cold War, but that it needs to remain engaged, credible, and primus inter pares in a web of alliances composed of most of the world’s advanced industrial states.--Dan Nexon. "Xi Jinping’s China, Trumpism, and International Order" @'Lawyers, Guns, and Money [HT Jacob T. Levy]

Even the smartest commentary on US domestic and international politics rarely escapes from partisan evaluation. By  'partisan evaluation' I equivocate between both (i) evaluating from a partisan standpoint as well as (ii) evaluating partisan achievements or failures. Of course, it is possible to do (ii) in a Weberian neutral fashion, but it's hard to pull off given that attention to such failures or achievements often contributes to (i). (Nor do I wish to deny that some administrations/parties screw up more than others or are responsible for some good or bad political outcomes.) What follows is an attempt to avoid both (i-ii), you can be the judge if I succeed.

The US suffers from a crisis of governance. By this I mean a hollowing out of US state capacity. Before you start to laugh -- after all the US Government is not just capable of mobilizing enormous power, but actually does so every day in deployment of troops, incarceration of citizens, capacity to tax, redistribution of wealth, and providing rents to insiders, etc. --, let me remind you of a few facts: first, what is notable about hurricanes of, say, the last thirty years, Andrew, Ike, Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, and Irma is not just the often incompetent response, but the utter lack of preparedness. (See also the series of guest post by Daniel Hogendoorn.) Preparedness involves the routine and politically boring elements of governance: drawing up long range plans, creating consensus procedures, drilling, failure testing, etc.  It requires complex coordination of different levels of government and different kinds of agencies. While Federalism generates routine challenges on governance, it also generates opportunities (for creative experimentation and citizen involvement, etc.).

Second, the maintenance of US Public infrastructure is often dismal. This includes an astounding number of deficient bridges on the US Highway System. Maintenance, repair, and inspection are politically un-sexy and while they may involve serious technical challenges, they are really not complex decisions. They often require earmarking a percentage of the capital budget and smart decisions when projects are planned (which may involve willingness to do 20-40 year projections, etc.). Obviously, there is politics here: do you invest in road or public transit; green options vs cheap, etc. But again the underlying issues are connected to capacity to coordinate, plan, and execute.

Third, the response to the ZIKA virus epidemic, left not just allies and poor countries unprotected, but needlessly endangered the lives of US citizens and babies. (Think about that; a country that obsesses over the status of fetuses, basically could not get its act together to protect the unborn.) Strikingly enough, the one municipality that got it right (while the US Government was bickering) was Miami--not exactly known for its high  quality governance. I used the previous three examples of lack of effective governance-- disaster planning & relief, infrastructure maintenance, and public health -- because these are not normally thought of as partisan issues, they impact the welfare of citizens often directly, and they involve long term coordination and planning by government of societies intellectual, financial, and workers's resources. (I could have added examples about the state of US Dams, airports, etc. I am inclined to think that there is by now overwhelming evidence that US local police forces are badly trained.)

Now I do not want to glamorize the past. But for most of the twentieth century, the US has been the de facto leader in developing the frameworks for and implementing effective governance. I don't deny, first, impressive feats by other countries (e.g.,the Swiss were capable of putting trains in impossible places and (post 1953) the Dutch created a comprehensive approach to water-management). Nor, second, that some of the US achievements themselves causes and reinforced racial patterns of oppression, and often involved brutal class warfare.

My current pet-theory that helps explain this erosion of governance is rooted in the end of the cold war. I consider the fall of the Berlin Wall the greatest political moment in my life. Even so, Mutually Assured Destruction created a sobriety in US governance that is lacking ever since. Because of overwhelming  US power, since then our political elites have behaved recklessly (culminating in the second Iraq war and the way the invasion of Afghanistan was handled) and at home (as Nexon notes, continuously allowing Wall Street to extract rents). I do not deny that the US behaved foolishly before, but there was always a multi-dimensional check on the extent of the folly. My underlying intuition is that democratic regimes do badly when they understand themselves as (locally) hegemonic and unchallenged: think classical Athens, the Dutch in the Far East before second world war, France in Vietnam after, Israel since the Egypt peace accords, etc. <--Obviously, this should be tested more rigorously.

Notice that I have not mentioned President Trump. I don't think what I am describing is a partisan issue (in the two senses above). Regular readers know I treat Trump as a symptom of the malaise not its cause (recall for example here and, going back to december 2005, here). I am open to the argument that in fact the meaning of his rise involves a very sizeable part of US electorate's repudiation of the elites from both parties that had governed (or not) the US during the last generation. (This was symbolized by the repudiation of candidates with the name 'Bush' and 'Clinton.') And while it is too early to tell, it is notable that one-party control of nearly all levers of US government has only revealed the extent of dysfunctionality.*

I close with three thoughts: first, it is possible that there has been a displacement effect. That is, that in so far as the US federal government has become enamored by (un)-funded mandates during the last few decades, governance capacity has been simply overwhelmed at all levels.* (Perhaps the war on drugs also played some such role.) Second, I am inclined to discount the currently popular idea that partisan polarization is the underlying cause here. (If anything I suspect it is also the effect.) For polarization has entrenched incumbents, and so should, in principle, make long-term governance easier. Third, I honestly don't know what is causing the corrosion of governance. I believe it involves a failure of democratic leadership -- a topic too ignored by theorists and empirical scientists --, and I am pretty sure it also involves a failure of our for-profit media landscape, but I do not know the solutions.  It is astounding, however, perhaps unprecedented, that a country as wealthy, youthful, educated, and as dynamic as the US is incapable of righting the ship of state. It is not that I welcome a future global rivalry with China, but one is almost tempted to long for it.

 

On a World Première

A few weeks ago, on 11 October, my mom took me to a concert of the Kamus Quartet at the Concertgebouw (in the Kleine Zaal) in Amsterdam. It was a pleasant Fall evening, but in my rush I had realized I had forgotten dinner; I was pleased to find a quick cup of soup on the Van Baerlestraat. During the academic year, when I teach, my life is so hectic that I lack time to check a music program; I can show up to the concert without having any idea what I am about to listen to. While in general I am averse to surprises (I am even more risk-averse than Rawls assumes), I like sitting down in the chair of the music hall, briefly close my eyes, take a meditative breadth, and then be surprised by the sounds. Of course, even if I did know the titles of what is on the program, I would still be surprised in some sense -- because I lack encyclopedic music knowledge --, but the surprise would be mitigated by some anticipatory expectations about what I would hear.

This time around, we did not receive program notes and we had not bought the program booklet. At the start of the second piece, I glanced to my left over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me. I looked at his booklet, and read that the first piece had been Grieg's unfinished second string quartet; as the musicians re-appeared on stage, I could vaguely make out the name Fagerlund. Because it was unfamiliar to me, I wasn't sure if I got that right. But soon I was distracted by the music emanating from the stage.

I adore chamber music concerts because in their intimate settings, you can follow the interaction among the musicians. The Kamus has a fantastic first violinist, Terhi Paldanius. She makes little eye contact with the rest of the group while she is playing as if she is completely withdrawn into her own music making; the others do make frequent eye contact with each other and often steel glances at her. It's as if they are checking she is still there with them and not playing among the eternal, crystalline spheres. Later in the Sibelius, Petja Kainulainen (the Cellist) would shine in a very different fashion. [Here is the program.]

I was a bit annoyed, at first, by the unfamiliarity of the music. I had, in fact, wanted some time to ruminate on the nature of an unfinished composition. I adore the opening movement of Schubert's 8th 'unfinished' symphony, and I always imagine -- when I hear it -- that of course it could not be completed; it's impossible to put an end to perfection--it's conatus is, as it were, in full vigor fully complete with itself. I made a mental note to check it out youtube and re-listen to Grieg's unfinished.

I enjoyed the Fagerlund piece, which sounded vaguely like Bartok and Berg. And I wondered if I had misread the name because I couldn't place him n my knowledge of the early twentieth century repertoire. The musicians seemed to enjoy it, too. When they were done, they accepted our warm applause but started to wave somebody on stage. Eventually Fagurlund -- for it was him -- appeared, and I realized I had just been witness to a world première of his second string quartet ('From the Ground'). He was a robust man with a sprightly step, and in the moment he climbed the podium I sensed his vanity and pride mixed with a bashful, boyish gratitude toward the players. In that moment I regretted that I was not a sculptor (like my dad) because I would have wished to capture that moment, with his many faces at once, in bronze. Despite the lures of intermission, we applauded louder and heartily.

It was probably not the first time the piece had been played; the Kamus quartet must have practiced it many times, including undoubtedly a full dress rehearsal. And there is really not much difference, to encountering a piece for the first time and a world-première. But even so, one does not have to buy into ex nihilo creation, to like the fact that musicians and other artists mark the first public performance of a piece. I am unsure where the practice originates (Wikipedia is frustratingly and revealingly incomplete on the topic).

And I am kind of sad that we philosophers -- when we launch our concepts and arguments into an unfeeling universe -- do not have an equivalent ceremonial sense.* One may think this is due to the fact that we do not think of ourselves as public performers. That would be the easy explanation. For, the premiere marks not just that something new has come into the world, and with this a whole range of possibilities, but that very novelty also signals that a bit of the world -- where people had not yet had the opportunity to hear Fagerlund's second quartet --, has become irrevocably history. And it is no coincidence that among the arts, we -- who embrace our eternal propositions -- are least comfortable with transience.

 

The Risks of Translator-Advocates as Enthusiasts

As to the translation, I have preserve the order of the original, except in a paragraph or two, which I have taken the liberty to restore to the chapters to which they evidently belong, and from which they must have been accidentally detached. The French translator hath gone much farther; he hath not only transposed every chapter, but every paragraph in the whole book. But in this, I conceive he hath assumed a right which belongs not to any translator, and which cannot be justified. His disposition may appear more systematical, but certainly the author has as undoubted a right to the arrangement of his own ideas as to the ideas themselves; and therefore to destroy that arrangement, is to pervert his mean­ing, if he had any meaning in his plan, the con­trary to which can hardly be supposed.--Translator's Preface to Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishment.

The target of the quote's attack is the French philosophe, Andre Morellet.* To the best of my knowledge the author of these words, the anonymous English translator, is unknown.  Through the efforts of Malherbes and Morellet the work became famous in France. And it seems to have been familiar to d’Alembert, Helvétius, Buffon, d’Holbach, and Hume then living in Paris (see Harcourt p. 3). The fame of the work only increased when Voltaire commented on the book in print. The connection with Hume is intriguing because Beccaria is clearly relying on a moral psychology that has considerable affinity with Hume's (and Condillac and Smith). And I wonder if Hume (who had visited Italy as a young man, and who was very interested in Montesquieu -- the main acknowledged source of Beccaria) did not have a role in facilitating the more sober, English translation.

During the last few weeks, I have introduced the idea of a translator-advocate (recall here and here): the underlying idea that some works of philosophy written in non-hegemonic academic languages need an entrepreneurial like agent to become part of  the conversations in the lingua franca. This agent needs to have, I think, four distinct set of skills: (i) linguistic competence in at least two languages; (ii) conceptual sophistication (to grasp the philosophy and other elements of the work to be translated); (iii) being at good philosophical politics (recall this post), that is, an understanding of how to attract the interest of the intellectual milieu that shapes and sets the agenda for discussion in the core, that is, how the translated work is framed and introduced. I do not deny that these skills can be acquired during the process of translation (recall my post on Briggs).

Judging by the uptake of Beccaria in Enlightenment France, Morellet was an exemplary translator-advocate for Beccaria's work. Now it's impossible to know whether Morellet's efforts at systematic re-organization actually increased the audience and excitement of the work's reception in France. But his systematic re-arrangement clearly did not hurt the uptake--presumably because Morellet accurately discerned (recall this post) that the appearance of systematicity was increasingly central to Enlightenment thought (a good introduction is the  work by the Danish scholar, Leo Catana). 

The English translator attacks Morellet on moral (''right") and semantic ("perverted his meaning") grounds. Before I address those charges, it is worth noting that the English translator fails to address the question to what degree Morellet's systematic re-arrangement was necessary to the uptake of Beccaria. Perhaps, and this may be blasphemy to some purists, the successful uptake justifies the decisions. I don't mean to suggest that the eye-balls and financial rewards, if there were any, justify any changes. But if we care, say, about the epistemic contribution of Beccariá's work to discussions of philosophy of law (and political theory--there are quite a few pertinent chapters), then the uptake must count for something. Again, this is not to justify Morellet's decisions, but before we condemn, hard questions must be asked.

As an aside, if you think this whole post is merely of historical or 'academic' interest, recall that Jonathan Bennett's translations are very influential in philosophical pedagogy. Bennet's earlymoderntexts.org take quite some liberty (he makes them 'plainer' and 'more straightforward') to make the original works "more accessible" to contemporary audiences (recall this post). It is my sense that quite a few philosophy works have been altered in some sense or another in translation (one thinks of the recurring controversies over, say, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Kant translations--I would love to hear from readers on their favorite examples). 

The English translator also assumes, without argument, that the systematic re-arrangement has transformed the meaning of the text. That is, the anonymous critic assumes that the arrangement of the text is constitutive of the meaning of the text. It is undoubtedly true that sometimes, maybe often, this is the case. But sometimes a slavish mimicking of the original arrangement -- say word-order -- may do no justice to the meaning. (Compare any of your favorite  translations of Latin with the original.) Of course, it is quite possible the English translator is right to suggest that French audience of Beccaria never really have read Beccaria's ideas/views, but rather a text inspired by Beccaria. (It would have been nice to see a few examples.) There are, of course, more complex issues here dealing with the nature of identity between original source and translation; in This Little Art, Briggs is very good at helping her reader see that there is a kind of imaginative  leap, I am tempted to say, a subtle form of self-deception, that comes with reading translations (in which one kind of effaces the fact that one is reading a translation).

Interestingly enough, the English's translator's decision themselves rely on the idea that slavish mimicry of the printed text is a mistake. She (I can't say for sure, of course, but so many translators have been women, it's a safe enough bet) also chose to change the text in light of with what she took to be intended meaning of the text. And she discerns this intended meaning -- notice her confidence ('evidently')--by assuming something like a principle of charity. My point here is not to challenge her practice -- I have no stake in the battle -- rather, that she recognizes that to grasp the intended meaning may require deviation from printed structure or even the idea-ational structure. For, and this point is more subtle, I think even the English translator recognizes that the relationship between "the arrangement of" the author's "ideas" (as presented in the text) "to the ideas themselves" (one may be tempted to say the propositional content discerned by the author) need not be one of isomorphism. 

I will close on an anti-climax, and ignore the moral charge against Motellet. Not because I don't take the morality of translation seriously. But rather -- and I am sincere here -- I do not quite understand the underlying argument about a right here. It's not that I deny there is no such right; I can imagine arguments that follow from the nature of personal identity or the nature of property or from the moral characterization of an intellectual credit economy that generate some such rights. But I am really unsure how an author's intended plan generates a right to fidelity to the plan in translation.

On the Civilized vs Savages, reconsidered.

Is it possible, without shuddering with horror, to read in history of the barbarous and useless torments that were coolly invented and executed by men who were called sages? Who does not tremble at the thoughts of thousands of wretches, whom their misery, either caused or tolerated by the laws which favoured the few and outraged the many, had forced in despair to return to a state of nature; or accused of impossible crimes, the fabric of ignorance and superstition; or guilty only of having been faithful to their own principles; who, I say, can, without horror, think of their being torn to pieces with slow and studied barbarity, by men endowed with the same passions and the same feelings? A delightful spectacle to a fanatic multitude!...

The punishment of death is pernicious to soci­ety, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their follow creatures, the laws which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples if barbarity, the more horrible, as this punish­ment is usually attended with formal pngeantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detect and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent mur­der, publicly commit murder themselves? Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria [1764] An Essay on Crimes and Punishment (96-97 & 104-105).

I had seen the name Beccaria mentioned in the context of predecessors to Bentham's utilitarianism and legal reform. And I recalled (with the help of Google) that in Discipline and Punishment, Foucault mentioned him as an exemplar of the advocate of a new political economy of punishment (more efficient, but also more unbounded, etc.); in fact, Foucault uses the very same passage I quote above to treat Beccaria as an advocate of the 'principle of moderation.' I had never read his Essay. But because I am preparing (with Sandrine Berges) an edition of Sophie de Grouchy's Letters on Sympathy, which offers a program of legal and penal reform, I decided to read Beccaria. His writing is forceful, with a vigorous sense of outrage and drama; rather than focusing on legal minutiae, he writes in the vernacular of an eighteenth century philosophe, who is clearly familiar with Hobbes, Montesquieu, Helvetius, Diderot, and if not Hume then Condillac or Adam Smith.  So, one is constantly hearing echoes of works already familiar, but applied and given vivacity, if I may, to urgent and existential matters of life and death.

The passages above are parts of his attacks on torture and the death penalty. (Amongst other things, he is also against anonymous accusations, and he favors a clear separation between judge and state prosecutor.) He is uncompromising against torture. And the only exception he grudgingly grants is one during the state of emergency: "it can only be necessary when a nation is on the verge of recovering or losing its liberty; or in times of absolute anarchy, when the disorders themselves hold the place of laws." (It's grudging because he relentlessly focuses on likely abuses of any law.)

As an aside, and to forestall misunderstanding, Beccaria's point is not to promote quiet, capital punishment without spectacle. For such punishment would defeat the purpose of punishment which is almost entirely meant to deter other people's future crimes. And so any punishment needs to be visible to the rest of society. This leads him, in fact, to justify a form of imprisonment that he (quite rightly) calls slavery--the prisoner needs to be seen to work. (His moral psychology justifying this is clearly indebted to Hume or a Humean.) 

Now, as regular readers know I am rather ambivalent (see here), and often opposed to the savage/barbarous vs civilized distinction. Historically, it helps justify colonial projects (from Ireland to the rest of the world) in terms of a paternalistic and violent extension of civilization.The distinction is not merely of historical interest: to this day it is re-activated by moralists to help justify belligerent acts against (let's stipulate for the sake of argument, hostile) 'non-western' forces.* 

For Beccaria, there are two kinds of savage/barbarous conditions. One is the state of nature, which he sometimes calls 'anarchy' or 'state of independence.' For him we escape the state of nature by being under authority of tolerable law or by way of contract. The conditions of this social contract deviate interestingly from Hobbes's account (which clearly inspired it)--about which some other time more. But, and this is the second kind of barbarism, a lot of existing or past states are de facto wholly barbarous or partially barbarous/savage. So, for example, while there are clear, non-trivial republican strains in his thought, he writes about the "Romans" (while praising them for their abhorrence of torturing citizens), that they were "in many respects barbarous, and whose savage virtue has been too much admired." (59)

That is to say, in Beccaria's hands the opposition between barbarism vs (law-governed) civilization is brought home and applied to Europe. And Europe comes out looking very barbarous which incentivizes criminals to become more violent and criminal and, thereby, (note the first passage above) returns to the state of nature. (So, for Beccaria, the state of nature is, as Spinoza suggests, possible within advanced society.) This, in turn, only benefits rulers who can justify further repression and savagery (etc.)

In fact, incentives are crucial to his general approach. I'll offer two examples of this: first, in his treatment of credibility of evidence, he writes: "the credibility of his evidence will be in proportion as he is interested in declar­ing or concealing the truth. Hence it appears,  how frivolous is the reasoning of those, who reject the testimony of women on account of their weakness; how puerile it is, not to admit the evidence of those who are under sentence of death, because they are dead in law; and how irrational, to exclude persons branded with infamy: for in all these cases they ought to be credited, when they have no interest in giving false testimony." (48) Witnesses are crucial to his general penal reform because he attacks oaths, torture, and duels as means toward establishing the truth in law-courts. The inclusion of women as credible witnesses is especially notable, because in general Beccaria is a defender of a modernized patriarchy. By this I mean, that he uses republican and social contract reasoning to attack the paternal tyranny over the household in order to create masculine equality (which excludes women).**

Second, there is a passage, that echoes an extremely familiar Machiavellian trope adopted by a whole variety of eighteenth century writers from Hume to Madison (recall Hirschman [who misses, I think, the significance of Beccaria]), "by opposing one passion to another, and opinion to opinion, a wise legislator puts an end to the admiration of the populace." (84)

Let me wrap up. Beccaria holds up a mirror to his European readers, who think of themselves as progressive, embracing mathematical sciences, and enlightened. What he shows is savage barbarism. But unlike say, Swift or Sade, he does so not to undermine the self-conception of the project of enlightened humanity (in different ways), but to encourage his readers to adopt reforms that may help the mirrored reality live up to its professed ideals.  

 

On Understanding Without Mathematics and the Slums of Sociology

I must confess that my own first reaction to the General Theory was not at all like that of Keats on first looking into Chapman's Homer. No silent watcher, I, upon a peak in Darien. My rebellion against its pretensions would have been complete except for an uneasy realization that I did not at all understand what it was about. And I think I am giving away no secrets when I solemnly aver-upon the basis of vivid personal recollection-that no one else in Cambridge, Massachusetts, really knew what it was about for some 12 to 18 months after its publication. Indeed, until the appearance of the mathematical models of Meade, Lange, Hicks, and Harrod there is reason to believe that Keynes himself did not truly understand his own analysis.
Fashion always plays an important role in economic science; new concepts become the mode and then are passé. A cynic might even be tempted to speculate as to whether academic discussion is itself equilibrating: whether assertion, reply, and rejoinder do not represent an oscillating divergent series, in which-to quote Frank Knight's characterization of sociology-"bad talk drives out good."
In this case, gradually and against heavy resistance, the realization grew that the new analysis of effective demand associated with the General Theory was not to prove such a passing fad, that here indeed was part of "the wave of the future.--Paul Samuelson (1946) "Lord Keynes and the General Theory," Econometrica. 187-188.

As I noted yesterday, an invited comment on Backhouse's biography of Samuelson has had me take a second look at Samuelson's biographical sketches and obituaries. It's testimony of Samuelson's confidence and rhetorical abilities that his lack of initial understanding of the General Theory is treated as a problem of the General Theory (and even Keynes). It is notable that he does not consider the obvious alternative suggestion that Cambridge, MA, was a relative intellectual backwater in 1936 (the year the General Theory appeared) and so unfamiliar with the new thinking developing in Cambridge England. (To his credit, in the rest of his essay, Samuelson provides some evidence for the latter half of that claim.)

As an aside, it is a bit peculiar to see a low estimation of sociology attributed to Frank Knight, the man most responsible of generating initial interest in (and translation of) Weber Stateside. One wonders if, perhaps, Samuelson's memory is failing him and that he is importing his own negative characterization of sociology (recall) into his memory of Knight's acerbic wit. My evidence for this suggestion is that when in a different obituary, he discusses Jacob Viner's ferocious use of the Socratic Method (indebted to the Harvard economist Taussig), Samuelson adds that graduate students who did not meet Viner's exacting standards "had no choice but to drop out or to transfer to the slums of political science or sociology." (JPE, 1972: 6) It's not impossible that the low estimation of sociology was more common among economists in Chicago, but we know from Stigler's citation practices that some read sociology and social theory rather seriously, and that it even influenced Milton Friedman's methodology. 

Some other time I'll explore the significance of the proto-cyclical-equilibrium model of scientific fashions, a model that would certainly have some significance (recall) for professional philosophy (where the idea that ideas cycle in and out of fashion is itself a recurring fashion.)* I mention it here because the whole obituary is framed in proto-Kuhnian terms in which Keynes generates a scientific revolution (and in which differential response to the revolution is explained in terms of generational differences.) Later in the piece, Samuelson notes that textbooks break the cycle: "most important from the long-run standpoint, the Keynesian analysis has begun to filter down into the elementary textbooks; and as everybody knows once an idea gets into these, however bad it may be, it becomes practically immortal." (189) Samuelson was just finishing up his mega-influential textbook. (Luckily, in philosophy textbooks are not the dominant mode of instruction yet.)

Okay, let me get to the main point. Samuelson claims here that mathematics is the language in which by way of a model one understands an analysis. (The previous sentence is compatible with the further thought -- pressed by Samuelson's ironic critic -- that mathematics may well be many languages.) This is true not just of the readers of the General Theory, but also its author. Samuelson emphasizes the point later: "In it the Keynesian system stands out indistinctly, as if the author were hardly aware of its existence or cognizant of its properties."** Now, to be sure, there are two important truths lurking in Samuelson's position: first, that the meaning of a text may well escape or go beyond an author (and sometimes even may be so intended by an author)--I made that same point when discussing the debate between Plantinga and Hazony over biblical meaning. Second, sometimes, maybe often, an analysis in non-mathematical language is fuzzy or unclear or equivocal in ways that are only made transparent by a mathematical model. (A claim Samuelson would repeat regularly later in his rejection of verbal economics as opposed to mathematical economics.)*** Only later in life (1972), when discussing Viner's significance (he calls him both the "greatest neoclassical economist" and a "great eclectic"), does Samuelson relent on the point: "Jacob Viner was a respecter of mathematics, but also both critical and defensive about it. Let me make clear that Viner possessed in superlative degree what might be called native mathematical ability....But I now realize in retrospect that the subject of economics gained from having Viner concentrate upon those areas of wisdom and erudition for which he had a unique comparative advantage, and that more mathematical facility might merely have diverted him from his appointed task."

Samuelson does not consider an alternative interpretation: that in different ways,  Meade, Lange, Hicks, and Harrod may have offered models inspired by the General Theory, but  in their very formulation changed the meaning of the 'Keynesian' analysis.+ One can recognize the previous point while allowing that the new models may have had all kinds of uses (teaching, policy, transferring knowledge, etc.) made difficult by the General Theory. To argue that case is not my present charge (and I would have to re-familiarize with all the relevant models), although I have already suggested that Keynes's insights about the nature of true uncertainty were lost in the way his views got formalized. (I made some such point in a different context when discussing Carnapian explication.) 

Strikingly enough, and Samuelson often buries his most important points in footnotes, he adds the following observation:

8 Indeed only in connection with Frank P. Ramsey's "A Mathematical Theory of Saving"...does he show interest in an esoteric theoretical problem; there he gave a rather intricate interpretation in words of a calculus-of-variations differential-equation condition of equilibrium. His reasoning is all the more brilliant -- and I say this seriously! -- because it is mathematically unrigorous, if not wrong. The importance which Keynes attached to this article is actually exaggerated and can be accounted for only in terms of his paternal feeling toward Ramsey, and his own participation in the solution of the problem. (196)

An uncharitable reading of Samuelson may suggests that he is committed to the idea that wrong mathematical reasoning is better than no mathematical reasoning (even if not wrong). A more charitable reading would suggest that he recognizes that sometimes insight does trump a wrong mathematical formulation, especially -- and this is not meant as criticism -- if it takes a Samuelson to discern the kernel of insight.