I recently published an article in the Swiss arts magazine Du on the wave of popular economics books. Yes I am an economist but I am also interested in the implicit philosophies and theologies of these books. My piece is in German and not on-line but here are a few bits from it.
About Freakonomics I wrote:
The implicit theology of Freakonomics is that of original sin. The book is full of stories of liars: “people lie, data don’t” can be taken as the book’s motto…
Levitt and Dubner seek to puncture naïve optimism. It is the reader who needs reforming, and the proposal is to drive naivete out of our systems. We must recognize original sin (recall the bite into the apple on the book’s cover), give up on utopian dreams, and stick to what can be proven by science. That means an acceptance of ongoing human depravity, but Freakonomics goes further. It preemptively protects us against encountering that depravity and lying in our own lives. We have been warned, and we need no longer fear disappointment from our encounters with the real world.
It should come as no surprise that Dubner – the one who actually wrote the book – also penned an entire book about his personal theology. Dubner is ethnically Jewish but his parents had converted to Catholicism and raised him as a Catholic. Over the course of his life he rediscovered his Jewish heritage and religion and chronicled that process in his fascinating Choosing My Religion: A Memoir of a Family Beyond Belief. It is theology, Dubner’s main obsession, which gave him the background to write a popular economics book that touched so many Americans.
And how about Tim Harford?
Harford’s voice is always gentle, sometimes cynical, and usually whimsical and reassuring in his language. He points to the ironies of life. He is hardly one to deny that people lie, but such peccadilloes are a sideshow rather than the center of his moral universe. We still can make our way in the world and carve out a small piece of personal happiness and perhaps a small bit of virtue as well. Harford often reminds us that hedonism has its place in human affairs; his latest book opens with a discussion of the prospect of “a rational [you-know-what].”
In other words, Harford serves up British secularism rather than American original sin. Harford’s “Dear Economist” column…views human foibles as inevitable yet endearing; in Harford’s world no judgment is ever too harsh or too one-sided.
As an economist, Harford seems more interested in “invisible hand mechanisms” than are Dubner and Levitt. Freakonomics informs us that what appears to be ordinary is in fact full of corruption. Harford’s Undercover Economist is keener to show that the apparently corrupt can, at the macro level, lead to entirely acceptable and indeed sometimes humane results.
There is much more, here is one final bit:
Popular economics books reveal their true colors most clearly when they talk about sex. In Freakonomics sex is not holy but rather sex and reproduction lead to the birth of criminals…For Harford sex is a slightly naughty pleasure, and a pleasure to be mocked, but at least it is a real pleasure; this American reviewer again cannot help seeing the British tinge of his work.
One quibble with your analysis:
The apple on the front of the Freakonomics cover has not been bitten but sliced open to reveal the pulp of an orange. I’d like to believe your Adam & Eve story, but the theory just doesn’t fit the data.
Indeed, J. Lo – I found some criticism of Freakonomics and the Undercover Economist (I have not yet read The Logic of Life) bemusing, considering that hardly any physicist would criticise Stephen Hawking for simplifying physics in A Brief History of Time. Of course Freakonomics used somewhat simplified statistical models, and of course the Undercover Economist retread basic economic principles – that was kind of the point.
It seems like a real stretch to take the abortion/crime chapter in Freakonomics as being a chapter about sex, so that you can then contrast it to Harford’s treatment of sex.
I think it’s pretty clear that study was only related to sex in the most superficial and tangential way.
Tyler’s comparison btw economics and religion is fascinating. Though I agree with economists that scarcity and self-interest explain most situations, how much of our basic beliefs are akin to dogma in religion. Harford’s recent book is a case in point: if all human actions can be described as rational, how can we ever falsify the rational actor model?
P.S.: I once read an excellent book by Richard Nelson titled “Economics as Religion” that I strongly recommend to the readers of MR
I would agree that incentives and scarcity seem to explain almost everything, or at least are a fun to way to view everything. Which author does it the best? meaning – which economist dumbs down the dismal social science enough for the layman to understand in the most interesting and believable manner?
It seems a stretch to say that the section on how Abortion, medical act condemned by most of the mainline American religions, is good because it causes less crime informed by American religious culture.
Also, I’m pretty sure that Jew’s don’t believe in original sin.
Meds, I’m not sure “dumbing down” and making understandable are the same thing. In fact, I am certain they’re not. Can you understand having the flu without knowing how a virus invades your cells? Probably. One thing I like about these books and this blog are that the specialists don’t withhold knowledge with the belief that the unwashed masses are incapable of understanding. Even with a shallow understanding, I suspect the layman is better off understanding something of economics rather than nothing at all.
I wasn’t saying that “dumbing down” was a bad thing at all. In fact, I love how it has been done. I have become such a junkie for these books over the last 4 years (I’m a newbie). I have had some terrible Econ professors where they could not bring the content to life like these books do so well.
Good teachers need to make the subject matter (I don’t care what it happens to be) interesting and understandable. That sometimes means getting rid of fancy terminology (due to overblown egos/narcissism/inability to teach) and the calculus (why I enjoy Levitt). In some cases the lousy professor’s view of “dumbing down” and making something “understandable” could be substituted.
Oops, I said “substituted,” Econ 101 time: If the price of saying “dumbing down” increases then demand for “understandable” increases. Therefore, I will use “understandable” in the future, unless of course there is a change in expectations.
I told you I was a junkie for “understandable” books explaining the basic economic principles.
Freakonomics informs us that what appears to be ordinary is in fact full of corruption.
Is economics the preferable way to convey the theological lessons that Tyler sees within Freakonomics? Are culturally rooted parables and epics, or passionately held religious beliefs, plain old fiction, or philosophy and reflection more intuitive and easier to follow teachers?
On this narrow question, the defenders of economics-as-common-sense teacher would claim that it is subject to the scientific method, etc. But, another way of looking at the scientific method is that it is a description of how people constantly change their minds. Mere common sense, or dabbling among great writers would have told you that monetary incentives lead to cheating, that cloistered athletes are inclined to fixing, etc. The mature religions and philosophies have endured and teach by experience, by million of individuals making use or disposing of various facets. In comparison, economics is teenage clanging of jargony, wonky noise; it is a juvenile arguing for its place among adults to answer teh Questions of Life.
All this reminds me of my favorite movie:
KURTZ: Are my methods unsound?”
WILLARD:” I don’t see any method at all, sir.”
never judge a book by its cover. who cares if people are inherently good or sinful. in the practical world, their actions alone are of importance.
No one seems to have noticed that Levitt is a Mormon, which probably informs his view of behavior. This seems much more germane than Dubner’s Judaism.
BGC… excellent comment regarding Sowell. Couldn’t have phrased it better.
Sowell is a product of Chicago and Friedman’s micro seminar in particular.
Sam’s broadside at Chicago was gratuitous. Levitt is one of a hundred or so economists in the econ dept and B-school there. As if Gary Becker, e.g., is a Puritan.
No, it’s more reasonable to take as representative of Chicago Gene Fama’s advice to PhD candidate Cliff Asness regarding a research proposal that attempted to poke a hole in the eff mkts hypothesis and led to the discovery that value stocks outperform growth stocks by more than they should:
“Go where the data lead you.”
If only all economists operated on that principle.
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