As suggested in my last posting under this thread, my theme this time is a
conjecture that self-styled binary economists practice a variation on what I
call Golden Bible Science. I make this conjecture in the interest of our
original objective, which was to increase the interest of economists in the
evaluation of ownership-expanding financial techniques and complementary
taxation and regulatory policies. No one who has paid some attention to our
archive should find it hard to understand my forecast that if economists do get
round to an undertaking of that kind, it will not be in a cooperative endeavor
with affiliates of those who have identified themselves in this forum as binary
economists. One can conceive of some complementarity of efforts, but an alliance
on the basis of shared understanding seems unlikely. Our dilemma is a clash
between the pure and the profane. Purity cannot, by definition, be mixed with
profanity, and the maintenance of purity therefore entails constant vigilance at
the boundaries. The champions of orthodoxy always require an ideological enemy.
The obvious first question to be addressed, given the announced purpose of
our group, was why economists have not been more involved in promoting
ownership via Kelsonian techniques. The immediate answer to that from the side
of the purists is that "economists are the enemy of ownership". In
spite of repeated protestations to the contrary from those who demurred from
signing a pledge of allegiance before reading it, they have by virtue of that
reluctance been relentlessly characterized as an enemy. It has turned out that
the content of the "pledge of allegiance" is to a small core of
doctrine identified as the binary theory of economics. Requests for explanation
of what it means and how it works, and especially of how it differs in
essentials from more conventional analyses have been met with frustrated
indignation and suspicion. Questioners have been vilified as either overt
enemies or as stupid for not being able to understand "the plain
truth". If not agents of the devil, they must at best be a species of
lesser beings to whom God will never grant the grace of understanding.
Dialogue has gone back and forth between two questions: 1) why do the binary
theorists believe it is so important? and 2) what do outside examiners find
problematic with it? An initial response to the second question (which I naively
expected to be received with relief) is that the theory isn’t necessary to
explain the plausibility of the prescriptions. Emphatic rejection of that polite
suggestion for patching up old wounds inevitably brings up a more controversial
observation: The binary theory contrasts itself to standard economics by
characterizations of the latter which are easily falsified by looking in a
standard text or the current definitions and data cranked out by national
bureaux of statistics. A more difficult conceptual problem is that binary
theorists have not made a persuasive explanation of the link between their
productiveness argument and their vision of binary growth. Our archive
demonstrates that this failure cannot be attributed to lack of effort on either
side! As the answer to the second question has been progressively clarified,
therefore, the first has deepened into a mystery. Why do binary economists
remain so adamantly attached to their theory if economists are otherwise willing
to cooperate with the general objectives? My hypothesis of Golden Bible Science
is addressed to that question. There is something that lies beyond reason in
attachments to the binary theory. Sources for belief other than reason take us
into the domains of psychology and neuro-science. The obvious meeting ground
between reason and the "other sources" is social groupings that are
held together by beliefs which are resistant to or protected from rational
scrutiny.
Ever since theology lost its Warfare with Science in Christendom
promoters of holy causes have wanted to have Science on their side. The image of
authoritative knowledge reinforces religious fervor, and the latter is a potent
ally in popularizing an idea. No motivation has been more evident in this forum
than the aspiration of "binary theorists" to be seen as participants
in the expounding of a major discovery. To say that the binary theories are not
necessary to make a case for the techniques and policy prescriptions is
interpreted as an insult, even when it is also pointed out that those
unnecessary elements of rationale are a probable source of difficulty in selling
the prescriptions. The binarists seem determined to be recognized as creators of
a revolutionary economic science, a new paradigm worthy in Norm Kurland’s
hyperbole of a Nobel prize. The strength of this commitment is expressed with
more vehemence and less caution than seems typical of academic debates (in my
experience). On the other hand, it is precisely typical of sectarian religious
arguments, in which my experience is much more extensive than I would have
wished. Furthermore, Norm and his CESJ colleagues have not made it a secret that
moral principles and a crusading spirit are part of their program. Their
passionate commitment to "binary economics" is easier to understand if
one also entertains the conjecture that the theory occupies the place of a
sacred mystery, like virgin birth or transubstantiation, in the quasi(?)
religious movement we have come to know through Norm and his allies.
This interpretation has been resisted, however. When I called attention to
the parallels with religion a few months ago, Norm expressed great indignation
and said that it disqualified me as a moderator. In the offending essay I quoted
a statement attributed to Francis Bacon (by Frank Knight) that "the more
absurd and incredible any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God in
believing it." The popular culture of Bacon’s time probably justified
that complaint, but I have to acknowledge that it is not typical of sectarian
religion in America of today, which leans much more heavily toward
pseudo-science. In characterizing binary economics as "golden bible
science" I offer the conjecture that it is a pseudo-science which tickles
some of the same psychical nerves as do doctrinal mysteries of religion. Norm
declines the role of prophet or evangelist, but he does not shrink from carrying
the banner of a crusade for revelation, so long as the latter is understood to
have emerged purely from brain tissue without the taint of divine
inspiration.
The most equable reaction I have had from my first innocent observation that
the binary theory is not necessary for explaining why the techniques work came
from a senior author of Kelsonian literature: "If the technique works then
the theory must be true." This claim does have a ring of plausibility, but
it is nonetheless falsified by readily available observations. It is quite
common in human experience for technique to precede understanding. Levers and
pulleys were in effective use long before Newton explained gravity. Science, as
a method or technique, is quite a recent phenomenon. Effective techniques of
many kinds preceded it, and it is only in recent centuries that they have become
"understood" via science. Medicine generally, and Chinese medicine in
particular might be cited. (We "understand" the latter by means of
western standards of explanation.) One of the best expositors of the Kelsonian
techniques I have encountered pointed to the leveraged buyout as evidence that
the techniques work. Shortly after that I discovered an explanation for why it
would work in economics literature of the early twentieth century. This
information was dismissed as uninteresting by the author mentioned above, who
later appealed to the notion that "if the technique works, the theory must
be true". The point here is that there may be different explanations for
why a technique works, and more than one of them may seem quite plausible. Why
should one of them be rejected if it helps to win support from a group that has
been targeted as a desired ally? This behavior casts doubt on the published
objective of the merchants of binary economics. It seems to elevate doctrinal
purity above effectiveness in achieving the concrete goal—a feature that
is typical of cults.
Ashford and Shakespeare replicate this appeal (if the technique works, the
theory must be true) in attempting to position themselves in the slip-stream of
Karl Popper: "[B]inary economics…is a science because its basic
proposition (that capital has a distributive relationship to growth) can be
proven true or false by merely opening the process of capital acquisition to all
people on market principles and then observing the results" (footnote, p.
92). An economist might be inclined to agree that general prosperity and
equitable distribution would be enhanced by the proposed techniques for
"opening the process of capital acquisition", but also have a
different explanation for how it happened. In other words, the A&S
suggestion does not qualify as a Popperian test. The test is too far in the
future and too vaguely specified. Rather than falsifiable prediction, it comes
closer to the flavor of what Popper called prophecy (in his critiques of
historicism). By this reference, therefore, A&S reinforce prophetic
appeals and warnings uttered by Norm Kurland in our discussions, which in their
turn reminded me of the golden bible text in our archive (April 25, "CESJ
and the Power of Values") To paraphrase, that quotation from
America’s golden bible (The Book of Mormon) says "you had better
believe this, because some day God is going to show you that I have told the
truth, and you are going to be mighty sorry if you haven’t paid attention.
(To be more specific, you are going to die in a flameout of spaceship
earth.)" In other words, someday there will be a showdown test. Some
peoples’ hypothesis will be falsified; others may be relieved to find that
theirs are still holding. But someday can be a long way off, and skeptical
decision-makers may wish to apply some truth tests to competing theories before
putting all their eggs in the basket of the evangelist who tempts them with a
simple formula to focus both their productive energy and their hatreds. For
believers, binary theory is a sacred icon and the test of allegiance.
The emotive power of religious enthusiasm is a clear advantage to anyone who
aspires to leadership of a political movement. At the same time, it helps to
attract followers if the leader can persuade them that by adopting his peculiar
notions they show themselves to be "smarter than the average bear".
This stratagem is blatant in the appeals of Norm to his allies, as copied to us
in the COG forum. Thus an idea which appeals to popular prejudice and has at the
same time a varnish of sophistication is a formula which demagogues find
irresistible. The appeal to active and potential acolytes is not to the vanity
of being among the elect who receive the divine grace of understanding the
mystery, but rather to the vanity of being intellectually superior—or
morally superior if the comparison is to the cadre of close-minded social
scientists.
That is the general nature of my hypothesis about golden bible science. To
identify more completely the kinds of tests which would falsify it, I need to
expand more fully on the nature of golden bible science itself and on the range
of phenomena we have observed here which it seems to explain. I will do that in
a subsequent installment, and at the same time change the label of the thread
appropriately.