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Academic exclusion: The case of Alexander Del Mar
Abstract
Alexander Del Mar's prescient and profound contributions to monetary economics have been basically disregarded for the duration of a century. This paper sets out Del Mar's contributions to monetary economics and economic statistics and demonstrates the striking relevance of his contributions to modern monetary thought. The contemporary arbiters and judges of intellectual merit were aware of Del Mar's writings but Del Mar was excluded from contemporary reference and recognition. His exclusion had led to his having been denied his rightful place in the history of economic thought. One explanation for the silencing of Del Mar is that his intellectual position placed him in opposition to the views of the leaders of the profession. Del Mar was also forthright in his criticisms of his contemporaries' views and was open in his writings in commenting on prior anti-Semitism. We present evidence suggesting that prejudice and bigotry in high places in academia were involved in Del Mar's exclusion from the consolidating profession of academic economists in the late 19th century.
... An issue that Tobin did not address concerns why such unlikely objects as immovable stones were selected to be media of exchange in the first piace. This issue was dealt with by Del Mar (1895), who noted that the inc1ination of some societies to use large objects as money arose as a result of the ne ed of a numéraire: thus, Del Mar (ibid., p. xxxiv) pointed out that the ancient "states of lona, Byzantium, Sparta and Athens" created "discs of purposely rotted sheet iron or bronze, having no value as pieces of metal, but possessing great and definite value of public measure".5 5 For a discussions of Del Mar's views, see Tavlas (2004 and2006). . I . ...
Article originally published in the volume 60 issu 241 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review (also known as BNL Quarterly Review).
... For an interesting case study of academic silencing, seeAschheim and Tavlas (2004). On political correctness, which also inhibits criticism, seeHillman (1998). ...
Geoffrey Brennan has presented a defense of Hobbes against the claim of misrepresentation of the prophet Samuel as supporting
a leviathan. He has also used the occasion of his reply to introduce embellishments that were outside of the scope of my observations
concerning the prophet Samuel and Hobbes.
... Notes 1 Silencing can also occur based on prejudice against a group. See Aschheim and Tavlas (2004). 2 It is discussed only in nonmainstream forums, such as the Post-Autistic Economics Review. ...
Does the mainstream of economic thinking and analysis tend systematically to exclude ideas and approaches that could enrich the field, and, as a consequence, have important questions and issues been shunted aside for nonobjective reasons? Two recent volumes by heterodox economists that address these questions are Geoffrey Hodgson's How Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in Social Science, and Steve Keen's Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences. I evaluate their claims of academic exclusion and assess the current state of (selective) pluralism within mainstream economics.
We describe and compare the experiences of academic exclusion of Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock. While aspects of the circumstances differed, a common element was academic exclusion because of challenges to mainstream views. Alexander Del Mar, J.A. Hobson, and Gordon Tullock were in due course recognized for the originality and merit of their contributions, although each incurred personal costs because of the exclusion by the academic elites of their time. Our study takes us into the role of ideologically based prejudice in judgment of the worthiness of economic ideas.
Article originally published in the volume 59 issue 239 of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review (also known as BNL Quarterly Review).
Ingham combines insights from two hitherto largely separate social science fields, i.e., Chartalist theories of money and
Weberian sociological theories on class struggle, to produce a wide-ranging and fascinating book, with a splendidly original
Chapter 6 on the importance of establishing a constitutional monarchy in the UK for developing monetary institutions. This
review finds the Chartalist analysis more compelling than the sociological emphasis on class struggle. Also, Ingham would
dismiss many of the fundamental concepts of economics, e.g., long-run equilibrium, neutrality of money, natural rate of interest,
etc., without providing any satisfactory alternative structure.
Del Mar made intellectual contributions that one would have thought merited at least the recognition, and if not more, that was given to other 19th century economists such as for example Henry George. The academic exclusion of Del Mar described by Joseph Aschheim and George Tavlas can be compared with the 20th century and with the intellectual openness of early 21st century academia.
Joseph Aschheim and George Tavlas have reminded us of the contributions of Del Mar and the exclusion of his ideas from the mainstream of academic economics. In this paper, I review some of his ideas on monetary economics, monetary history, numismatics, metrology and religion that are relevant to the issue. Del Mar's many-sided genius took him into arcane fields in which he raised questions that had not been asked before and presented answers that were to say the least unconventional and highly controversial. His economics lay outside the academic traditions and biases of his time but his many-sided genius never fails to fascinate. His exclusion from academia did not mean that he was not regarded as a great scholar outside the ivory tower. Moreover, and perhaps more important, he made broad-sweeping generalization about the origins of Western religion and the corruption of church literature that offended church authorities and earned him the enmity of established churches.
Born in New York City and educated as a mining engineer at New York University, Del Mar formulated views on monetary economics on the basis of numerous empirical investigations which he undertook both on his own during the Civil War, and while serving as the first director of the US Bureau of Statistics.
An abstract for this article is not available
An abstract for this article is not available.
In this survey, we shall first present a formal statement of the quantity theory, then consider the Keynesian challenge to the quantity theory, recent developments, and some empirical evidence. We shall conclude with a discussion of policy implications, giving special attention to the likely implications of the worldwide fiat money standard that has prevailed since 1971.
Irving Fisher is regarded as the progenitor of monetary analysis in the United States. Such recognition should also be accorded to Alexander Del Mar (1836-1926), a completely neglected monetary economist who evidently influenced Fisher. Del Mar's contributions include: (1) a dynamic formulation of the quantity theory and the associated development of a broad monetary transmission mechanism; (2) the hypothesis that money supply variations generate expectations of price-level changes that precede actual changes in prices; (3) the espousal of the first monetary growth-rate rule in the U.S. professional literature. /// Alexander Del Mar, Irving Fisher et l'économie monétaire. On considère Irving Fisher comme l'ancêtre de l'analyse monétaire aux Etats-Unis. C'est un honneur qu'il faudrait plutôt accorder à Alexander Del Mar (1836-1926) -- un économiste monétaire complètement ignoré même s'il a clairement influencé Fisher. Parmi les contributions importantes de Del Mar, on peut noter: (i) une formulation dynamique de la théorie quantitative de la monnaie et le développement d'un mécanisme général de transmission monétaire; (ii) l'hypothèse que des variations dans l'offre de monnaie vont engendrer des anticipations de changements dans le niveau des prix qui vont précéder les changements effectifs dans les prix; (iii) la suggestion pour la première fois dans la littérature économique professionnelle aux Etats-Unis d'une règle de croissance dans la masse monétaire.
Even after several decades since its publication, Keynes’ General Theory continues to provoke debate and controversy regarding the interpretation of some essential issues. The present work examines the relationship of money illusion to involuntary unemployment within the framework of the modelling methodology of the General Theory. The author argues that Keynes’s rational for distinguishing between involuntary and voluntary unemployment is consistent with the absence of money illusion. Such an absence implies the notion of money disillusion.
JEL: E12, E24, E31
This paper examines the international experiences with four basic types of monetary policy regimes: (1) exchange-rate targeting, (2) monetary targeting, (3) in#ation targeting, and (4) monetary policy with an implicit but not an explicit nominal anchor. The basic theme that emerges from this analysis is that transparency and accountability are crucial to constraining discretionary monetary policy so that it produces desirable long-run outcomes. Because the devil is in the details in achieving transparency and accountabil- ity, what strategy will work best in a country depends on its political, cultural and economic institutions, as well as on its past history. ( 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1938. Includes bibliography.
History of Political Economy 32.4 (2000) 833-856
In a review of recent biographies of John Maynard Keynes, Mark Blaug (1994, 1213) speaks of “his (Keynes’s) mild anti-Semitism, so typical of educated people in the interwar years.” While mildness is a matter of taste, that “anti-Semitism [was] typical of educated people in the interwar years” is a proposition that merits some examination. The first part of this article presents some evidence relevant to judging both the mildness of the sentiments and their etiology. The second part contrasts the attitude of “educated people” toward Jews in the second half of the twentieth century with that expressed by Keynes and at least some of his eminent contemporaries, specifically Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek, in the first half, and attempts to explain the change.
The purpose of this essay is to use the recorded views of these economists of unquestioned eminence as a window for viewing the mind-set of “educated people” generally during the first half of the twentieth century. To do this, it is necessary to assume that expressions of hostility toward Jews were uncorrelated with field of specialization—that is, such expressions were as likely to be made by a practitioner of any other occupation requiring a high level of education as by an economist. In addition I wish to acknowledge that I have made no attempt to develop the possible connection between an individual’s attitude on this subject and the substance of his writing. While I consider it quite possible that there might have been a connection between an individual’s anti-Semitism and his views on matters of public policy and/or academic politics, documenting such a connection would be very difficult, and I have not attempted it. The objective of this essay is limited to exposing a facet of contemporary culture that is perceptibly different from what it was (say) fifty to seventy-five years ago and to suggest an explanation for the change.
It would be absurd to attempt to infer from the writing of three individuals, and outstanding ones at that, the “typical” attitude of an entire profession or, a fortiori, of the “educated class.” Rather I start with a prior belief, similar to Blaug’s, that the attitude in question was common among “educated people” and use these particular individuals as illustrations. The historical importance of these individuals (Keynes has been the subject of four biographies and Schumpeter of three), as well as the wide esteem in which they are held among contemporary economists, provides additional justification for a careful examination of their views on this subject.
Because the esteem in which these individuals are held conflicts with the current disapprobation of anti-Semitism among educated people, biographers have tended to apologize for and/or minimize the significance of remarks that would indicate that their subjects entertained inappropriate views on this sensitive topic (see below). The current disapprobation has also prompted efforts to point out exculpatory behavior by one or another of these subjects, such as the befriending of Jewish individuals or the extension of public support for efforts to assist refugees from Nazi Germany. However, I contend that the very occurrence of such behavior serves to highlight an important aspect of the attitude that is to be described: its ambivalence. Whether mild or astringent, typically the anti-Semitism of educated people was ambivalent, manifested in some contexts and toward some individuals, but not in others.
This attitude of ambivalent anti-Semitism that was so common before World War II underwent a marked and quite rapid change, especially in academic circles, sometime around 1950. Part 2 attempts to describe this change and to offer an explanation for its occurrence.
To establish the facts, I begin by presenting a number of the remarks and other evidence on which the attribution of anti-Semitic attitudes to these individuals is based. I start with Keynes, because in his case the evidence is much more voluminous and the underlying attitude much more explicit than in either of...
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money / John Maynard Keynes Note: The University of Adelaide Library eBooks @ Adelaide.
vent output prices and output from adjusting instantaneously. Both the size of deficits and the method of financing affect output and prices. Some principal implications are derived. Several of these are also demonstrated, using a graph to show the interaction of asset markets, output markets, and the financing of the budget deficit. Some main implications of standard analysis are rejected. The basis for several "monetarist" conclusions is shown.
Milton Friedman's contention that the crucial theoretical difference between Keynesians and monetarists is that Keynesians assume rigid prices is shown to be factually and logically wrong. Distinctively monetarist propositions and prescriptions depend not on price flexibility but on the assumed insensitivity of monetary velocity to interest rates. To avoid this assumption, Friedman's second "monetary theory of nominal income" takes interest rates as exogenous in the short run; but the model has strange inconsistencies and implications. Finally, Friedman's longrun quantity theory propositions are shown to apply only to economies where money is the sole exogenous nominal magnitude. Milton Friedman has earned our gratitude by the two articles setting forth his theoretical framework (Friedman 1970, 1971). He has certainly facilitated communication by his willingness to express his argument in a language widely used in macroeconomics, the Hicksian IS-LM apparatus. He undoubtedly hoped that use of a common theoretical apparatus would
The relationship between Milton Friedman's monetary economics and the views espoused by Chicago and non-Chicago quantity theorists in 1930-36 is examined. Contrary to recent interpretations, Chicago economists advanced the efficacy of monetary policy as the means of escaping from the Great Depression if such a policy was implemented with budget deficits to generate monetary expansion. The use of the quantity theory of money to provide a theoretical rationale for budget deficits distinguished the Chicago economists from other quantity theorists and left them less susceptible to the Keynesian revolution. The claim that Harvard was an important center for monetary research in the early 1930s is refuted. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.
Monetarist analysis of the transmission process highlights the response of relative prices and real wealth to monetary (and other) impulses. Monetary impulses are neutral in the long run. Short-run nonneutrality reflects uncertainty, incomplete information about the persistence and nature of impulses, fixed contracts, and other institutional detail. Patterns of change in relative prices have some common features but they also differ from cycle to cycle and by countries. This paper compares the monetarist analysis of intermediation to the lending view and presents evidence on the role of relative prices, lending, and other types of intermediation. Copyright 1995 by American Economic Association.
Understanding of monetary transmission mechanisms is crucial to answering a broad range of questions. These transmission mechanisms include interest-rate effects, exchange-rate effects, other asset price effects, and the so-called credit channel. This introduction to the symposium provides an overview of the main types of monetary transmission mechanisms found in the literature and a perspective on how the papers in the symposium relate to the overall literature and to each other. Copyright 1995 by American Economic Association.
The intellectual breakthroughs that mark the neoclassical revolution in economic analysis occurred in Europe around 1870. The next two decades witnessed lively debates in which the new theory more or less absorbed or was absorbed in the classical tradition that preceded and provoked it. In the 1890s, according to Joseph A. Schumpeter (1954, p. 754) there emerged "a large expanse of common ground and ... a feeling of repose, both of which created, in the superficial observer, an impression of finality -- the finality of a Greek temple that spreads its perfect lines against a cloudless sky." Of course the temple was by no means complete. Its building and decoration continue to this day, even while its faithful throngs worship within. American economists were not present at the creation. To a considerable extent they built their own edifice independently, designing some new architecture in the process. They participated actively in the international controversies and syntheses of the period 1870-1914. At least two Americans were prominent builders of the "temple," John Bates Clark and Irving Fisher. They and others brought neoclassical theory into American journals, classrooms, and textbooks, and its analytical tools into the kits of researchers and practitioners. Eventually, for better or worse, their paradigm would dominate economic science in this country. This paper discusses their contribution.
An evaluation and commemoration of two pioneering American economists one century after their deaths in 1897. Biographical sketches are followed by expositions and assessments of their contributions to economics. Areas covered include distribution theory, the explanation of poverty, George's single-tax proposal, the business cycle, and money and statistics. A novel interpretation of George's treatment of rent is provided. Also covered are the parallels and antagonisms between George and Walker, and the uneasy relationship between George and the academic economists of the era. An appendix provides a brief guide to the literature.
We briefly review the rationale behind technological alliances and provide a snapshot of their role in global competition, especially insofar as it is based around intellectual capital. They nicely illustrate the increased importance of horizontal agreements and thus establish the relevance of the topic. We move on to discuss the organisation of industries in a dynamic context and draw out consequences for competition policy. We conclude with an outlook on the underlying tensions between technology alliances, competition policy, and industrial policy.
Russian finance: a bad investment. The Forum
- F H Geffecken
Geffecken, F.H., 1891. Russian finance: a bad investment. The Forum, 602 -610.