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DLD Co-Director, Ha-Joon Chang was invited to give a lecture at the University of Helsinki by the project “Rethinking the Serviceability of Economics to Society”. Following his talk, Teemu Lari interviewed him on the topic of ‘Economics, pluralism and democracy’ for the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics.

The discussion was fascinating, covering Chang’s personal intellectual history, his views on pluralism and the role of economists in politics. There are also plenty of music and food analogies to bring concepts to life.

Here are some quotes from the full interview to whet your appetite.

Personal intellectual history

“There were all these huge changes, positive and negative, happening [in Korea]. And the professors taught us these abstract models. Not even dynamic models but equilibrium economics devoid of structural change, social conflicts and all the other things that were important. I and many of my friends just couldn't take it seriously.”

 “And then  when  I moved  to  Cambridge, I  got  exposed to  yet  more schools…... There my appreciation of the diversity of economics and the respective strengths and weaknesses of different schools grew even further.”

The role of economics (and economists)

“As I point out in 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism, if you look at those government officials who created the so-called East Asian  economic miracle,  in  Japan they  were  almost entirely  lawyers  by training. Korea had some economists. But until the early 80s or so, they were predominantly  lawyers  by training.  Then  in Taiwan  and  later in China, all the leading economic bureaucrats were scientists and engineers. Looking at this reality, I came to ask: if economics was not very important in  creating  one of  the  biggest economic  transformations  in human  history, then what is it doing?”

“When I tell people that economics is not—and cannot be—a science, I tell  them that  studying  society made  up  of individuals  with  free will, imagination, moral standards, political views, and so on, you cannot predict behaviour in the same way that you can predict behaviours of natural things. After all, subatomic particles do not say ‘Well, the other particles behave in this way, but I'm not going to do it because I think it's ethically wrong’”

“ I define economics  as the study of the  economy. To put it  very simply, how  we produce,  exchange,  consume, and  these  days waste,  our  goods and services…..

I think the belief that you can define a subject in terms of methodology is very problematic because the methodology itself is not value-free.”

“So, in the end, even though neoclassical economists might think they  are just  arguing  for a  logical  and verifiable  way  of looking  at  the world, actually what they are doing is defining logic, data and theory in very particular ways.”

Pluralism 

“I want the pluralism which recognizes all the potentially useful approaches to economics as legitimate and recognizes their relative strengths and weaknesses. This kind of pluralism will also require that different schools try to learn from each other. For me, that's intellectual pluralism and that's what I argue for. It's not like just ‘live and let live’ or just allowing minorities to exist. Nor is this the ‘I disagree with you, but I respect your right to be different’ approach, which I called ethical/political pluralism. 

I'm not saying that those types of pluralism are wrong or irrelevant. But for me, true pluralism exists only when you have complete intellectual openness and humility to accept that you don't have a monopoly over truth. True pluralism means that we recognise  that  there are  different  kinds of  respectable  ways of  doing  research in economics. And most importantly, it would mean that different schools of economics learn from each other.”

Economics and democracy

“People need to understand that there are different economics theories which are good at different things and which, even when they are looking at the same problem, give different answers. There is no single best answer.” 

“Saying that economists should also determine how the country should be run would be like saying that the plumber should dictate how the house is designed (six bathrooms, one living room, three sinks in  the kitchen, etc.). Plumbing is absolutely important for hygienic and comfortable life, but that does not mean that plumbers should decide how to design and build the house.”

Header image credit: Clint Adair via Unsplash.