E-Book Overview
This work examines economics using art history as a starting point. Historians of economic thought have long recognized the possibility that the "science" of economics owes more to cultural influences than is usually admitted. The book offers a study of this contradiction, highlighting the cultural and aesthetic influences of surrealism, cubism and abstract art on both economic theory and method in the 20th century. Arguing that economics has developed more as an art form than as a science, the author looks not only at what economists have produced but how they have produced it, uncovering the cultural preconceptions which have shaped economic theory and method in the last 100 years. He argues that the time is ripe to embarrass the profession into a whole-sale reconsideration of what economics is for, how it should be done and what might make it better and more useful to the academy and to the world at large.
E-Book Content
ECON-ART Divorcing Art from Science in Modern Economics
Rick Szostak
Pluto
P
Press
LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA
First published 1999 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA Copyright © Rick Szostak 1999 The right of Rick Szostak to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7453 1447 3 hbk Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Szostak, Rick, 1959– Econ-art : divorcing art from science in modern economics / Rick Szostak. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7453–1447–3 (hardcover) 1. Economics––Philosophy. 2. Economics––Methodology. I. Title. HB72.S96 1999 330'.01––dc21 98-51471 CIP
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Production Services, Chadlington, OX7 3LN Typeset by Gawcott Typesetting Services, Buckingham Printed in the EC by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead
Contents
Acknowledgements
ix
Preface
xi
Chapter One Art and Science 1.1 Unveiling Econ-Art 1.2 The Question of Purpose 1.3 The Purpose of Art 1.4 Art versus Science 1.5 Science versus Art 1.6 Art and the Act of Insight 1.7 A Micro View 1.8 Culture and Economics
1 1 3 6 8 13 16 17 19
Chapter Two Surrealism 2.1 Modern Art 2.2 The Roots of Surrealism 2.3 Surrealism 2.4 Surrealism in Econ-Art 2.5 Who Cares About Reality? 2.6 Toward a Better World? 2.7 Primitive Man 2.8 An Orderly World 2.9 The Quest for Understanding 2.10 An Antidote to Nationalism 2.11 Suspicion of Authority
24 24 24 25 28 30 35 39 41 44 47 48
Chapter Three Cubism and More 3.1 Cubism 3.2 The Cubist View of Time 3.3 Technological Incursions 3.4 Return to the Classics
51 51 53 55 56
vi
3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9
ECON-ART
A Brief Look Back Abstract and Non-Objective Art Self-Reference in Econ-Art The Pursuit of Linearity The Econ-Art Manifesto
58 59 63 65 68
Chapter Four Mathematics as Art 4.1 The Deification of Technique 4.2 Maths as Art 4.3 Automatic Writing 4.4 Maths as Science? 4.5 Yet Another Perversion 4.6 There Exists a Model 4.7 Maths is Easy 4.8 Maths is Unreal 4.9 Mathematics versus Science 4.10 An Example: General Equilibrium 4.11 A Second Example: Econometrics
71 71 75 77 79 86 86 88 89 90 92 96
Chapter Five Ideology 5.1 Ideology in Art 5.2 Ideology in Econ-Art 5.3 Power 5.4 Ideology and the Great Depression
102 102 106 112 114
Chapter Six Econ-Art/Econ-Science 6.1 The Existence of Econ-Art 6.2 Econ-Art/Econ-Science 6.3 The Quest for Econ-Science 6.4 A Lesser Purpose 6.5 Artistic Detachment 6.6 The Existence of Econ-Science