Yes Virginia, There Is a Role for Cultural Theory

A point was raised in the comments to my previous post, which deserves a separate post, so here goes.

Shouldn't Austrians do or at least acknowledge cultural theory?  (The claim was, if I recall, we don't appreciate its import.)

We've already been there. Back in the day we formed with Don Lavoie a weekly readings group studying cultural theory.  Heck, we even read Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. I was off on my own reading Adorno's criticisms of the spontaneity of jazz music, Marcuse's criticisms of pop news and entertainment in Time Magazine, and who knows what else.  I still have their books, all marked up, on my shelf. Yes, Frankfort School Theorists, who nevertheless were pioneers in the fields of cultural analysis from, of course, a Marxist-structuralist approach.  Strive to do it over from an Austrian approach.

We went further.  Don and Pete and I attended Peter Berger's three week faculty seminar on Economy, Values, and Culture.  (Yes, Berger the co-author of The Social Construction of Reality.) Pete and I discussed and debated with Dan Rose, the radical ethnographer.  Pete and I wrote up a $10,000,000 proposal to establish a center at the University of Kansas that would focus upon comparative political economy and ethnographic research.  I vividly recall Dan banging on the door to my dorm room, asking what all the noise and debate and laughter was all about.  He was surprised to see only Pete and I, who, in Dan's words, "were manically writing in a fog of ideas and cigar smoke." He could not believe that this was all done in the context of a multi-million dollar grant idea that just popped into our heads.

What's the point?  We were hoping to establish a cultural-analysis program for applied Austrian economics. 

What followed?  Pete went on his "Just Do It" Nike philosophy -- go out and do the ethnography.  One of my main criticisms here was not that our theory wasn't developed enough, but that we (i.e., Pete's students) don't know how to do ethnography.  Ethnography is not simply standing three weeks at a street corner in Moscow taking it all in.  I learned at least this much from the ethnographers (methodological and applied) whom I had read, let alone from Rose's Living the Ethnographic Life.

I had first hand experience:  my original proposal for my Fulbright grant -- which was accepted -- was to "get inside" a bureau of the planning apparatus and try to make sense from the planner's perspective of their everyday life and surroundings.  Language, and esp. political barriers, prohibited such a project.  I still think I could've done a "Jokes from a Planning Office" paper (a twist on Hop Jan's "Notes from a Planning Office").  Hell, I think we should now do a "Jokes from the Treasury Office" paper.

But there have been real successes.  Lavoie and Emily Chamlee-Wright published a book on the subject.  Virgil Storr has been doing fine applied cultural research. 

What about a cultural analysis of the profession?  Well, Pete and I had that idea very early on, and hoped to use some of that 10 mil for a major research project on the impact of the Ford Foundation and the Cowles Commission in shaping contemporary economic theory and debate, tenure, promotion, professional expectations, and so on.

Alas, it hasn't happened.  Maybe Pete and I should edit such a work, and encourage some of Pete's best students to write the chapters.  (Pete, we need $$$!)

Anyway, the call for cultural analysis by and among Austrians is nothing new.  Some of it has already been accomplished.  Some of it is still promising. I don't know of the other heterodox schools that have launched such a project.  If they have, I'd like to see their results.

Comments

[Andrew Knight]

Hi Dave,

I'm emailing you in regards to a followup email I sent you a month ago in response to a partnership, have you had a chance to think about it?

If you have any questions or would more information, please advise me and we can go from there.

Kind Regards,
Andrew Knight

[matthew mueller]

Thanks Mr. Prychitko, this was very very interesting. I tried to get into Cultural Studies about a year ago, and actually presented a paper at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2008 using "postmodern historiography" to "complete" Lachmann's subjectivist program. We all know that it began with Mises and the subjectivism of tastes and ends, then moved on to Lachmann and Shackle with the subjectivism of expectations; but I extended this still further to include the subjectivism of history. Tastes --> Expectations --> History. Once this is done, the meaning of the subjectivism of tastes and expectations take on new meaning. I used the work of Hayden White and other cultural relativists to make this point. I quickly discovered, however, that those at the Mises Institute did not like this kind of work!

So I don't think it is right to adopt the attitude of "Been There, Done That." But I also don't think the Austrian school's commitment to libertarianism will permit it to explore the WIDE area of cultural studies, because most of it has strong leftist political implications (or consist of attempts at justifying such implications).

As to other schools. I think some of the recent work being done in Institutional Economics (the old kind) has connections to cultural studies. I know that Institutionalists are now combining the work of Veblen with that of Karl Polanyi, for example.

But I don't think Austrians should focus on cultural studies. I think theology is far more interesting. Even a cursory study of the literature in theology will reveal how apposite it is to economics. Theology is concerned with issues of freedom, knowledge, being, power, etc. All of this has great relevance for the theory of economics. Someday I would really like to dive into this whole literature.

Is anyone aware of any economist who addresses the concerns of Spinoza or the medieval scholastics (Duns Scotus, Abelard, etc.)?

[Rafe Champion]

The cultural turn has a lot going for it both at the level of high theory and the practical task of challenging the left-liberal dominance of the soft social sciences, the humanities and culture at large. Over here the film reviews in the popular Sunday press regularly contain snide references to Reagan and Thatcher, just in case people have forgotten what terrible people they were and how much damage they did.

As to high theory and the hermeneutic turn, do you think that a live program can be based on the work of the Frankfurt School and the likes of Gadamer? It seems that their own research makes no useful connection with the world that we live in. For my money some of the giants in this field are Karl Buhler, Jacques Barzun and Rene Wellek. Dave, do you have any comments on their contribution to cultural studies and to your prospective program?

It is intriguing to chart the progress of Jeffrey C Alexander from the footsteps of Talcott Parsons to full-on cultural theory. Two comments: (1) he has taken on board just about every modern school of social thought with the exception of Austrian economics and Popperian critical rationalism and (2) he suggested that powerful intellectual traditions should sponsor fruitful research programs which also feed into practice. I can see that happening at GMU but not in the hands of the more mainstream exponents of cultural theory.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/EvenMoreAustrianProgram/EMACulturevsGMProg.html

[Peter Boettke]

Dave,

I have maintained my relationship with Peter Berger over the years since that summer, speaking at more modern versions of that seminar, writing in book projects with Berger, and in fact I am currently involved in organizing a conference to honor Berger.

I have also taught economic sociology at the PhD level (at NYU), served on sociology dissertations both at NYU and overseas, and become friends with Richard Swedberg.

Students here at GMU have had to read Dan Rose's book you mention, etc. So they had to do a bit more than just observe from the street corner in Moscow (or Romania, Czech Republic, Latin America, India, East Asia, and Africa). Our GPI program tries to blend ethnographic research with traditional data analysis as Austrian/Institutional political economy. I actually think the successes have been quite considerable in terms of publications is quality journals and in books. One of my proudest moments was when Why Perestroika Failed was published and a Russian intellectual that I knew sent me a note to tell me that he and his friends read my book and were impressed at how it resonated with their lived experience. I started to use the phraseology at one point of "the political economy of everyday life" to describe the applied project I was interested in.

So it is not so much been there done that, but been there, and still doing it. I just published a paper with Ed Stringham a few months ago that used our interview data from our various visits to Prague. And our students here at GMU, were exposed to work on ethnography, methodology of qualitative research, and anthropological field studies in the past. This was complimented with serious study of thinkers such as Lin Ostrom, who pioneered field studies in rational choice political economy and institutional analysis. In fact, most people don't know this but Paul Aligica and I have a book coming out next spring on the Ostrom's and the Bloomington research project. [Note to Matt Mueller --- want to read a fascinating thinker? Read Vincent Ostrom, especially his work The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerabilities of Democracies --- has many solid Lachmannian themes].

What I do want to suggest is that in all of this I have emphasized the fundamental intellectual debt to Don Lavoie. Don went into Cultural Studies, including his departure from economics and his faculty appointment at GMU in Cultural Studies (as well as the School of Public Policy). I didn't go completely with Don with PSOL -- though I was offered a chance to come and be part of his program in the mid 1990s, I chose to stay at NYU at the time. But Don really did offer a vision of Austrian economics that was deeply engaged in cultural studies. His influence spilled over to impact some of my GMU colleagues, such as Tyler Cowen (see his study on Mexican art) his students such as Andres Maroquin.

BTW, Rod Long is also working on a vision of Austrian school which is beyond economics and counters the Frankfrut school.

More directly at Matt --- working with Veblen and Polanyi (Karl) is not the only way to address cultural studies in economics. BTW, did you know that the first professional paper I wrote dealt with Veblen and the Austrians, and do you know Veblen's own historical relationship with the Austrians PRIOR to his time at Chicago, where he came under the influence of behaviorism?! The Veblen of Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science? is a diferent Veblen of his more famed works.

Finally, I must admit I am confused by your claims about libertarianism and Austrianism. Having an argument about cooperation in anonymity, or institutional guideposts in a complex world, or coordination of diverse and sometimes divergent plans is not IDEOLOGY, but social science. Ludwig Lachmann wrote The Legacy of Max Weber, as well as Capital and Its Structure and The Market Process.

What is ideological about Ricardo's Law of Association and the mechanisms by which it is achieved, or prevented from being achieved?

I have gone on too long already.

[matthew mueller]

Rafe Champion,

I have always admired your interests in the philosophy and science and such, and think you might be interested in this latest blog post of mine:

http://post-austrianeconomics.blogspot.com/

No one is more qualified than you to comment on the relationship between Popper and Mises. Please have a look!

[matthew mueller]

To Mr. Boettke,

And this also concerns anyone else interested in and familiar with the work of Veblen. Yes, I am aware of the "behaviorism" found in Veblen's work. The single best source on this is an obscure book written by David Seckler entitled "Thorstein Veblen and the Institutionalists." Seckler wrote this book as a PhD dissertation at LSE under Professor Lord Robbins. Seckler also writes that F. A. Hayek read the book and commented favorably on it.

Mr. Seckler proposes in the book to reveal "the secret of Veblen." He writes:

"there are in fact two Veblens. There is the behaviouristic Veblen and the humanistic Veblen inextricably intertwined to the extent that any theory of Veblen based on one or the other interpretation can be directly contradicted with a quotation --- usually in the same piece --- arguing to the contrary. ... Forced from humanism, unable to accept either historicism or behaviourism, Veblen fled into obscurantism; that is his secret."

That captures the essence of Veblen. So I would be careful on how you characterize the work of Veblen. Cite me a passage of his that is "behaviouristic," and two pages later I will show you his "humanistic" side. Veblen was a very serious and complex social theorist, sort of like Frank Knight. His work is very hard to classify, but it is very easy to appreciate.

----

(1) I don't think the work you cite by these "economic sociologists" falls under what Mr. Prychitko meant by "cultural studies." Culture studies refers to: post-colionalism, critical theory, gender studies, post-structuralism, etc. Richard Swedberg and Vincent Ostrom do NOT fall into this category.

(2) On Austrian economics and ideology, I can only refer you to a recent blog post of mine where I discuss these issues: http://post-austrianeconomics.blogspot.com/

[Peter Boettke]

Matt,

Read my papers in Reserach in History of Economic Thought and Methodology (1989) where I discuss the Seckler book. That paper resulted in a symposium on my work (and that of Warren Samuels (another heterodox thinker that you should read)) by several institutionalist thinkers as well as just historians of ideas.

You missed my point --- I know what Cultural Studies stands for (I teach in the Honors Program at GMU (and did at NYU)) and my advisor Don Lavoie became a Cultural Studies scholar --- and my former student Virgil Storr is a contributor to this literature. The people that I cited related not to cultural studies, but instead thinkers who take culture seriously (remember I published a paper in 1992 entitled Why Culture Matters) --- the Ostrom's pioneered field studies from a rational choice perspective (but again it is as Lin puts it Rational Choice As If the Choosers Were Human --- which is similar to Mises's position).

An invitation to serious inquiry Matthew that is all.

Pete

[Nick]

Matthew Mueller's posts and blog make me want to paraphrase Churchill - never in the field of human action, has so much been said by someone with so little understanding.

No offense Matt, but I think you need to finish your degree and do post-grad study before you can start to lecture the Austrian school on what it should and should not be doing.

[Dave Prychitko]

Pete:

You are correct, sir (Ed McMahon). All true, and good. Only one thing: most of what you cite is not really ethnography. It's good, it tries to capture the embeddedness, but it is not ethnography except in the loosest sense.

I also forgot to mention that much of the Mercatus project on Kartina is cultural analysis, too. Again, it is not really ethnography, but certainly it appears that way against the approaches of other economists.

[Dave Prychitko]

Matt:

On theology. I don't know how it is relevant to any of this. But, having said that, let me throw in my two cents here.

I've read with great profit Schillebeeckx. Several books and interviews. Also his teacher, Chenu. Although insightful, I became a bit too tired of his post-structuralist approach -- I much preferred his heremeneutical period. Afterwards, I've read Paul Ricouer's Figuring the Sacred. This is a powerful work on hermeneutical theology. I am especially impressed with his analysis of the roles that metaphor plays in Christianity. The notion of polarity in metaphors (or, as I tell myself, the idea of stable and unstable metaphors, and the challenges they bring to the rational-yet-faithful believers.)

Most important, I've found the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and most influential, the work of the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing, to have a the most profound impact on me. I.e., the whole via negativa theology in the early church, which persists mostly in the Orthodox Christrian tradition today, and seems, to my regret, to have been all but lost in contemporary Catholicism. Negative Theology is quite similar to the knowledge issues behind Chan Buddhism, which I've also read constantly over the past quarter century.

As to economists on the medieval scholastics. See Schumpeter's history of thought book, and Rothbard's history of thought book.

[Dave Prychitko]

Andrew:

please resend your email. I must have misplaced it!

[Peter Boettke]

Dave,

Now we are talking. Yes it is not ethnography in the strict sense, but that is because ethnography has its problems as well. It is a synthesis project.

As I have explained in my review essay on the Bates, et. al., Analytic Narrative book, I came to the position that we can divide theoretical efforts into "thick and "thin" and we divide empirical efforts into "dirty" and "clean". Economists have a penchant for "thin/clean", while anthropologists have a penchant for "thick/dirty". I argue that there are strengths and weaknesses with both approaches. On the other hand, empirical sociology and empirical political science tends to be "thick/clean" and as a result I argue is the worst form of social science. Instead, perhaps we could pull off a reconfiguration of the social sciences. Thus, the push for "thin/dirty" research. What does that mean? In the least challenging form it means the analytic narrative --- the combination of the logical structure of game theory with narrative empirical examination (think Avner Greif). The middle challenging position would be Austrian economics used to produce revisionist history (think Rothbard, or my first book). The most challenging is the use of institutional analysis and Austrian economics to inform ethnographic field studies (think Emily's work on female entrepreneurshp in Africa, or on community redevelopment in the wake of a natural disaster, or Ed Stringham's with me on the Czech stock exchange).

Now, I am firmly convinced that the purpose of theory is to do history. However, I also want to bring the power of that theory to the widest possible audience in the social sciences. So since that experience with Berger's summer institute, I have spent most of my energies trying to forge the theoretical alliances (Austrian economics, economic sociology, political economy, PPE, institutional analysis, etc.) and learn from the debates over empirical analysis (quantitative vs qualitative), and getting my students to think serioiusly about this intellectual project.

This discourse is so much a part of the GMU Austrian culture over the past 10 years, that outsiders often miss the background discussions that go on dealing with the foundational issues in theory (just look at my syllabus for Austrian I or more traditionally Austrian II, or look at Dick Wagner's recent book projects to see the actual work being done at that level) and the philosophy of the social sciences (some of this will be discussed in my forthcoming book with Paul Aligica, but even this doesn't do justice to the behind the scenes discussions).

So what do we have as far as the empirical side of the research project --- analytic narrative economic and political economy research; revisionist history; and field studies. What have we found? Well as far as talking to other professional economists (and my goal has been for good or bad to get my students the best possible appointments in the economics profession) --- the ethnographic field studies are viewed as dubious, the analytic narrative work can get in the JPE. If my paper with Ed would have landed in the QJE (it was reviewed and actually got some favorable nods, but at the end of the day was rejected) perhaps the "market signal" would have attracted more students to work on that ethnographic margin. Instead, the clear signal they have received is to do analytic narrative style of work.

Since I am involved in all three empirical projects and have an intellectual commitment to all three, I don't see the problem. Others who find one style of research more exciting than the others will be drawn to that one. So Virgil (who like Don before him distinguishes between two Pete's -- the good Pete that is more informed by hermeneutics, and the bad Pete who flirts with neoclassicism) will push more for the ethnographic turn. I more easily see a blending of empirical approaches to "triangulate" the evidence.

Do I think more ethnography should be going on in economics? YES. Do I think ethnography is REALLY hard to do right? MORE SO NOW THAN I USED TO.

Do I advocate that my students do "clean" empirical work? Actually NO and a look at the work we do demonstrates that they are ALL working on margins of the "dirty" --- from the most clean of the "dirty style" (Pete/Chris) to the dirtiest of the dirty stle (Virgil and Anthony Evans). But we are all "thin/dirty" social scientists. We are pushing to reconfigure the social sciences.

To me it is a wonderful array of work in political economy. And I have to pinch myself to realise just how lucky I have been to work with these young scholars.

[Peter Boettke]

BTW, Anthony Evans became friends with Mary Douglas and works with the idea of cultural analysis and business management. How cool is that?

All these guys are mixing and matching ideas which previously were considered not mixable. Lets upset the apple cart is my view.

What is amazing to me, is that I am getting to be the old fart getting passed by, by all of these guys on the different margins. This recognition has made me want to push harder to do better work to try to just catch up. But I can barely stay up.

Pete

[Dave Prychitko]

Dirty, yes. Thin... well, I have to take a better look at you and Steve!

[Steve Horwitz]

Hey, I resemble that remark! :)

[Dave Prychitko]

Pete and Steve:

I think we really should do a "Jokes from The Treasury Office" project. Hell, a chapter of that, and from the DEA, the Fed, and so on.

How Bureaucrats See Themselves: Jokes From The American Bureaucracy.

[Josh]

You guys would have been encouraged at the last IHS career development seminar. There were 3 of us who considered ourselves part of the Austrian School of Sociology! After having thought of myself as the only classical liberal wondering through the sociological desert, it was great to see that there are others out there.

[Dave Prychitko]

Josh:

Keep it going.

[Steve Horwitz]

Indeed Josh. Austrian sociologists are music to my ears.

[Dave Prychitko]

"As to high theory and the hermeneutic turn, do you think that a live program can be based on the work of the Frankfurt School and the likes of Gadamer? It seems that their own research makes no useful connection with the world that we live in. For my money some of the giants in this field are Karl Buhler, Jacques Barzun and Rene Wellek. Dave, do you have any comments on their contribution to cultural studies and to your prospective program?"

Rafe:

No, I don't think that a program can be based upon Habermas and the Frankfurt School. I was more optimistic about Gadamer than I am today, but Virgil Stoor keeps succeeding in that direction. Gad's book on Aesthetics is overlooked, but might also be relevant.

As to the three you've mentioned, I'm only aware of Barzun. I think he can be of great help in the project. Again, Peter Berger, too.

Esp. : Berger, Berger, and Kellner The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness.

Hunter and Ainlay (eds.) Making Sense of Modern Times: Peter L. Berger and the Vision of Interpretive Sociology.

This is also a good comparative volume:

Wuthnow, Hunter, Bergeson, and Kurzweil, Cultural Analysis: The Work of Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas.

[Dave Prychitko]

"As to high theory and the hermeneutic turn, do you think that a live program can be based on the work of the Frankfurt School and the likes of Gadamer? It seems that their own research makes no useful connection with the world that we live in. For my money some of the giants in this field are Karl Buhler, Jacques Barzun and Rene Wellek. Dave, do you have any comments on their contribution to cultural studies and to your prospective program?"

Rafe:

No, I don't think that a program can be based upon Habermas and the Frankfurt School. I was more optimistic about Gadamer than I am today, but Virgil Stoor keeps succeeding in that direction. Gad's book on Aesthetics is overlooked, but might also be relevant.

As to the three you've mentioned, I'm only aware of Barzun. I think he can be of great help in the project. Again, Peter Berger, too.

Esp. : Berger, Berger, and Kellner The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness.

Hunter and Ainlay (eds.) Making Sense of Modern Times: Peter L. Berger and the Vision of Interpretive Sociology.

This is also a good comparative volume:

Wuthnow, Hunter, Bergeson, and Kurzweil, Cultural Analysis: The Work of Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas.

[Liberty Belle]

I didn't write this piece, but it is the best post I have read in a long time. I am sharing it with my readers, I'm passing it along to you. It is pure mind candy. One commenter wrote:

If this were an essay on economics, it would be the best essay on economics I’ve read in a year or more.

If this were an essay on social structures, it would be the best essay on social structures I’ve read on a year or more.

If this were an essay on conservative versus reformer mindsets, it would be the best essay on *that* that I’ve read in a year or more.

In fact, it was all three of those things, and I’m frankly stunned at how excellently you’ve made so many points in such a short space.

Bravo.

http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/jane-galt-a-libertarian-view/

[Rafe Champion]

Thanks Dave, you can get an introduction to the Buhlers and Wellek here
http://www.the-rathouse.com/K_and_C_Buhler.html
http://www.the-rathouse.com/ReneWellek.html

Yvor Winters is good on literature as well, especially modern literature as a vehicle of irrationalism.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/YWinters_essayRC.html
"Winters offers a three-pronged response to the deconstructionists. First, there is his robust sense of the reality of the external world, as one might expect from a man well versed in the system of St Thomas Aquinas (and also a breeder of Airedales). Second is Winters' insistence on the impact of literature on the world and the moral responsibility that this places upon writers and critics to be clear about what they are doing and its likely effects if they are taken seriously. Third is his attention to the living presence of literature that is achieved by appropriate meter and rhythm. On the significance of literature he wrote:"
'The power of artistic literature is real: if we consider such writers as Plato, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Voltaire, Emerson and Hitler we must be aware that such literature has been directly and indirectly one of the greatest forces in human history...it behooves as to discover the nature of artistic literature, what it does and how it does it. It is one of the facts of life, and quite as important as atomic fission.'

[Rafe Champion]

Dave, on your last point, the work that other schools are doing, this is a review of some (rather old) conference proceedings
http://www.the-rathouse.com/revglobcult.html

Tyler Cowen has done some really interesting studies http://www.amazon.com/review/R20LMNK1HDG6A0/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
And also Virgil but I am not aware of any really impressive body of work from our progressive colleagues. A great deal of it is unreadable. Keith Windschuttle is quite good on the "killing of history".
http://www.amazon.com/review/RY57W0ULK5EDJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

[aje]

Just to follow up Pete's comment (with a bit of shameless self-promotion), I've recently guest edited an edition of "Innovation" applying Mary Douglas' 'Cultural Theory' to management:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g904521628~db=all

My own contribution was not ethnographic, but there's more in the pipeline. I have a couple of projects along these lines (stemming from my paper that won the 'Lavoie Prize'). But I know that I won't be able to do *decent* ethnographic work until I've given a few more years of teaching service. That's why the GPI project is so important, and although summer fieldwork won't reach the levels of rigour we might aspire to, we've contributed to the advance of the applied Austrian research program

http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=12958