Craig Freedman

Though transparency and clarity are essential for the advance of any discipline, economics is often bogged down both on the side of the reader and writer. Like clots in the bloodstream, communication blockages can act to stall and divert economic understanding. Consequently, economists who fail to effectively communicate with one another will be unlikely to speak clearly to the general public. This volume examines four methods that tend to block (or obfuscate) vital flows of communication.

How modern economics abandoned classical liberalism and lost its wayMilton Friedman once predicted that advances in scientific economics would resolve debates about whether raising the minimum wage is good policy. Decades later, Friedman’s prediction has not come true. In Where Economics Went Wrong, David Colander and Craig Freedman argue that it never will. Why? Because economic policy, when done correctly, is an art and a craft. It is not, and cannot be, a science. The authors explain why classical liberal economists understood this essential difference, why modern economists abandoned it, and why now is the time for the profession to return to its classical liberal roots.Carefully distinguishing policy from science and theory, classical liberal economists emphasized values and context, treating economic policy analysis as a moral science where a dialogue of sensibilities and judgments allowed for the same scientific basis to arrive at a variety of policy recommendations. Using the University of Chicago—one of the last bastions of classical liberal economics—as a case study, Colander and Freedman examine how both the MIT and Chicago variants of modern economics eschewed classical liberalism in their attempt to make economic policy analysis a science. By examining the way in which the discipline managed to lose its bearings, the authors delve into such issues as the development of welfare economics in relation to economic science, alternative voices within the Chicago School, and exactly how Friedman got it wrong.Contending that the division between science and prescription needs to be restored, Where Economics Went Wrong makes the case for a more nuanced and self-aware policy analysis by economists.

For the economics profession, issues of marketing and ideology have often been reduced to the status of 'the love that dare not speak its name'. This volume brings these issues out of the closet and examines what effect, if any, these factors have in shaping the contours of the discipline. The way in which economists face policy issues is in part driven, even if only subconsciously, by unacknowledged ideological concerns and the increasing need to sell one's theories, views and policies in a frustratingly competitive academic market. In seven carefully and provocatively granulated chapters, the volume raises possible implications of these marketing and ideological imperatives by approaching the problem from a number of surprising and irreverent directions. Though unfortunately, in its irrevocable denouement the text proves incapable of creating anything resembling a life changing experience let alone coming to any definite and irrefutable conclusions. Like life itself, economics is full of uncertainties and uncontrollable difficulties.

For the economics profession, issues of marketing and ideology have often been reduced to the status of 'the love that dare not speak its name'. This volume brings these issues out of the closet and examines what effect, if any, these factors have in shaping the contours of the discipline. The way in which economists face policy issues is in part driven, even if only subconsciously, by unacknowledged ideological concerns and the increasing need to sell one's theories, views and policies in a frustratingly competitive academic market. In seven carefully and provocatively granulated chapters, the volume raises possible implications of these marketing and ideological imperatives by approaching the problem from a number of surprising and irreverent directions. Though unfortunately, in its irrevocable denouement the text proves incapable of creating anything resembling a life changing experience let alone coming to any definite and irrefutable conclusions. Like life itself, economics is full of uncertainties and uncontrollable difficulties.

Snow on the Pine presents a compelling view of the Japanese foreign policy that runs counter to the common wisdom reducing Japan's post-war efforts to the pursuit of purely commercial interests. This book takes a new approach — the eventual Japanese defeat in the Second World War did not transform Japan into an “exceptional state” seeking only economic interests. Like any other nations, economic issues have always played a crucial role in policy decisions. However, this is but only one amongst the many interweaving threads determining foreign policy decisions.In the authors' eyes, Japan's foreign policy is characterized by the drive to dominate and influence the East Asia region, which has been a consistent motivation since the days of the Meiji restoration. Thus, the post-war period in this analysis provides a continuation rather than a break with the country's previous history. Tactics, and even strategies, may have changed over time to meet the challenges of the ever evolving economic and political environments but the overall objective has essentially remained constant. The snow melts, but the pine endures.

Snow on the Pine presents a compelling view of the Japanese foreign policy that runs counter to the common wisdom reducing Japan's post-war efforts to the pursuit of purely commercial interests. This book takes a new approach — the eventual Japanese defeat in the Second World War did not transform Japan into an “exceptional state” seeking only economic interests. Like any other nations, economic issues have always played a crucial role in policy decisions. However, this is but only one amongst the many interweaving threads determining foreign policy decisions.In the authors' eyes, Japan's foreign policy is characterized by the drive to dominate and influence the East Asia region, which has been a consistent motivation since the days of the Meiji restoration. Thus, the post-war period in this analysis provides a continuation rather than a break with the country's previous history. Tactics, and even strategies, may have changed over time to meet the challenges of the ever evolving economic and political environments but the overall objective has essentially remained constant. The snow melts, but the pine endures.

Cold-war ideology infected the development of economics in ways its practitioners were often not fully aware. The Chicago counter-revolution against the dominant post-war triumph of Keynesian analysis had an essential subtext, a perceived struggle between freedom and collective slavery. Ideological objectives subsequently influenced methodological concerns, pushing economists to adopt the zero-sum tactics of the courtroom rather than the mutually beneficial manners of the senior common room. In these ideologically charged times, economists stopped reading opposing views carefully, seeking instead to dismiss, out of hand, uncongenial ideas.In this collection of previously published and new material, Craig Freedman examines the problem of ideology through the reflection cast by the architects of the Chicago counter-revolution, George Stigler and Milton Friedman. The second half of the volume demonstrates the legacy of these ideological fires, namely a profession where the methodology of careless reading and zero-sum exchanges have persisted and come to dominate.