Johnny Fulfer, Author at

Moving Beyond the Status Quo: The Case for Ecofeminism

Back in 2002, economists Shane Frederick, George Lowenstein, and Ted O’Donoghue found that people generally value the present over the future—something they called a time preference. While this seemed intuitive for most people, economists Marcus Dittrich and Kristina Leipold later showed that this time preference is not necessarily uniform across gender lines. Following an online experiment with 1019 subjects, they found that men were more impatient than women, choosing to receive rewards immediately, while “women are better able than men to delay gratification and tend to be more self-disciplined.” In a county like the United States—which is mostly controlled by men—it is not surprising that policymakers have continually privileged the present over the future.

Despite the fact that 97 percent of all climate scientists believe that climate change is real, many Republican leaders (Donald Trump, for instance) still argue it is some fictional conspiracy, while many others who do recognize the reality of climate change, still privilege economic growth over environmental protection. There is a deeply embedded culture of masculinity in the United States that is problematic for those who want to create constructive solutions for mitigating climate change. Researchers Aaron R. Brough, James E.B. Wilkie, and their colleagues conducted a series of experiments with over 2,000 participants and found a “psychological link between eco-friendliness and perceptions of femininity” and that “men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity.”

Perhaps what is needed is a more feminist approach to climate change. As journalist Maria Laurino writes, “Contemporary American feminism has primarily come to mean championing women’s autonomy and challenging the privileging of male over female.” In other words, it means that feminists do not privilege men over women—who are equal in every capacity and therefore should have equal opportunity. If you are a man, being a feminist does not mean you are somehow feminine or unmanly, it simply means that you don’t believe that men are somehow exceptional and that women are equally competent to take leadership positions.

Do more women in leadership roles translate into more environmental protection? Sociologists Kari Norgaard and Richard York surveyed women policymakers in 19 countries that hold 92 percent of the world’s population and found that “nations with higher proportions of women in Parliament are more prone to ratify environmental treaties than are other nations.” If women are more likely than men to delay gratification, pursue environmental protection, and cooperate internationally, doesn’t it make sense that they should have greater authority over environmental research and policy?

What about those who guide policymakers, such as economists? Researchers Ann Mari May, Mary McGarvey, and David Kucera surveyed economists in universities across 18 nations in the European Union and found that male economists not only prefer market solutions over government intervention, they are more skeptical of environmental protection than women economists. Isn’t economics supposed to be an objective science? As economist Duncan Foley wrote in 2016, economics is not an objective science because it is guided by values — which determines which research questions to pursue and which kinds of economic policies economist will support and legitimize.

In addition, May, McGarvey, and Kucera also found that male economists were two times more likely to become full professors. “Despite an increase in the number of women entering economics from the 1970s to the 1990s,” the researchers wrote, “the profession remains predominantly male.” Even the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, acknowledged that the field of economics favors men over women. Despite the evidence that suggest the economics profession discriminates against women, Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley of the New York Times, report that some male economists dismiss the notion of a gender bias, “arguing [instead] that gender disparities must reflect differences in preference or ability.” As this article has shown, this is clearly not the case.

Given the data that suggests that female economists and policymakers are more open to responding to environmental issues (see also here, here, and here), it seems pretty clear that we need a more feminist approach to alleviating climate change. A greater representation of women in senior economics positions, as researchers May, McGarvey, and Kucera show, would lead to a more diverse set research questions — widening the range of discussion about climate change and creating a more diverse set of conclusions and policy outcomes.

About the Author: Johnny Fulfer received a B.S. in Economics and a B.S. in History from Eastern Oregon University. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in History at the University of South Florida and has an interest in political economy, the history of economic thought, intellectual and cultural history, and the history of the human sciences and their relation to the power in society.

Neoliberalism in Action

Book Review: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America

How did a network of libertarian influencers mobilize ideas and resources to restructure American society to reflect their radical “free market” perspectives? In her recent book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, historian Nancy MacLean strives to provide an answer to this question.

MacLean views the radical right as a group of “true believers” in freedom, an idea they associate with market freedom, aiming to remove public services and replace them with privatized schools and prisons that respond the market, not voters within a democracy. In doing so, MacLean argues that the radical right will eventually reduce freedom for the majority while privileging the propertied minority. The more power the propertied minority has, the less democratic society becomes. The ultimate target of the radical right, which has gained control of the modern Republican Party, is to change American society to privilege capitalism over democracy even more than it does now.

For libertarian economist James Buchanan, the market mechanism was the most efficient method of allocating resources, which he views as a form of democracy. Educated at the University of Chicago under Frank Knight and Milton Friedman, Buchanan played a significant role in the “stealth plan” of changing the rules of American society, not just people who make the rules. MacLean argues that Buchanan was radicalized at Chicago, where he earned a PhD in economics and learned the “science to support his existing “antigovernment feelings” (p. 36). Buchanan spent most of his teaching and research career in Virginia where he co-authored The Calculus of Consent: The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy with Gordon Tullock.

In extending the market rationality to American politics, Buchanan and Tullock argued that politicians only pursued their own self-interest rather than any broad interests of society. Given that public institutions are led by officials that only pursue their own interests, public governance should be based on the principles of the market. They called this public choice theory, a framework that focused on non-economic decision making and served as a basis for awarding Buchanan the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1986. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that was funded by billionaire Charles Koch, viewed The Calculus of Consent as a form of protection for capitalism against government, while MacLean argues that “[i]t might more aptly be depicted as protecting capitalism from democracy” (p. 81).

As a Nobel Laureate, Buchanan created an influential research program at George Mason University, which gained the attention of the Koch Network, which funded and later controlled Buchanan’s program, aiming to leveraged the legitimacy of economic theory to produce a society that was governed by the market, not by democracy. The “stealth plan” of this radical right was to mobilize ideas and resources to change the rules of American society to reflect its free-market perspective, not just who rules. To do so, they had to change the way the rules were rationalized. Buchanan’s public choice theory offered a way to re-conceptualize American law and politics.

On the surface, MacLean’s book offers a critique of libertarianism, although, it could perhaps better be understood as a critique of public choice theory—or neoclassical economics more generally—as a way of thinking and rationalizing society, which became dominant through powerful libertarian social and economic networks. By examining these nuanced power dynamics, MacLean offers a brilliant look at neoliberalism in action. She reveals the real-life experience of neoliberalism by showing us how and why the radical right extended the principles of the market rationality to areas outside conventional limits of the economy.

In her discussion of law and economics, a field of law that draws on the principles of economics, MacLean frames the entire field—rather than elements of it—as an attempt to undermine the broader public interest, while privileging the corporate language of profit, which uses cost-benefit analyses to make decisions. While MacLean makes a very persuasive argument, she overlooks the idea that cost-benefit analyses can be useful, depending on the context and purpose for which they are used.

Beyond this and other minor issues with MacLean’s book, such as her conspiratorial tone, Democracy in Chains offers an excellent look at the American political process and how seemingly marginal ideas, can become powerful enough to radically alter it.

It’s Time to Guarantee Jobs

The first half of the twentieth century was a challenging time for economics. The Great Depression wiped out incomes, investments, and most importantly, optimism. But when the traditional laissez-faire approach proved ineffective, the work of Keynes and FDR showed that there was another way. The New Deal employed American workers directly and restored confidence among business owners. Today, we could benefit from a similar program. It’s time for a new New Deal, or a Job Guarantee Program, that secures employment to all who are able and willing to work. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. By Johnny Fulfer.

What We Learned from the Great Depression

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. economy was in a recession just over 48 percent of the time between 1871 and 1900. But none were as bad as the crisis that followed The Great Crash of 1929. Nevertheless, orthodox economic theorists urged policymakers to maintain the status quo and argued the economy would return to normal as long as it was left alone. This perspective was influential and often framed the ways in which political leaders such as Herbert Hoover understood the crisis. Hoover was not only politically committed to free-market ideas, he was psychologically invested in them, urging Americans to show thrift and self-reliance, practices which later resulted in more turmoil.

Elected president in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt did not have an all-embracing theory that would solve all America’s problems. Rather, he employed a wide range of policies, some of which failed, while others were successful in getting people to work. Perhaps the greatest impact Roosevelt’s New Deal had on American society was the change in perspective policymakers had toward government intervention. Earlier leaders like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had had only moderate success producing government initiatives to restrain the predatory nature of American capitalism. But after the Great Depression, FDR helped policymakers and citizens markedly change their views in favor of government assistance, temporarily pushing the conservative opposition to the margins.

As such, FDR’s New Deal momentarily ended the ‘rugged individualism’ of the Hoover era and demonstrated that free-market economics could not be relied upon in a time of crisis. When the economy falls into a slump, the government must be used as a source of relief.

This, too, is the argument that John Maynard Keynes makes in his influential 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Keynes challenged the neoclassical principle that the market naturally adjusts itself to full employment. Along with the two held theories of unemployment—voluntary and frictional—Keynes wrote, there is also the involuntary, which was the result of a shortfall in aggregate demand.

The volatility of investment, Keynes argued, is dependent on our expectations of the future. The only way entrepreneurs would invest is if they expect sufficient demand for goods and services. This was a problem during the Depression—spending money was scarce. When people are unemployed, or fearful of losing their jobs, they are likely to reduce spending. This creates a cycle of insufficient demand, bringing profit-expectations down. Increasing savings, Keynes showed, would only make things worse. A rise in savings would reduce spending, and thus bring down the total level of employment and income. Surplus inventories with nobody to buy commercial products would force firms to contract operations and lay off even more workers.

Therefore, Keynes concluded, there is no automatic recovery from depression; supply does not create its own demand. The only solution is for the government to heavily invest in public works, creating jobs and increasing demand to rebuild confidence in the business community.

Roosevelt’s New Deal did exactly this. It produced nearly 13 million jobs, over 60 percent of which came from the Works Progress Administration, an organization which hired a wide range of individuals, from artists and writers to laborers who constructed roads, bridges, and schools. An incredible number of public goods were provided through these programs, and money was placed in the hands of the workers, whose purchasing power gave business owners’ profit expectations the much needed boost.

Why We Need a new New Deal

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently published a report examining the current employment conditions in the United States. The unemployment rate stands at 4.1 percent, the BLS reports, which is roughly 6.6 million people in the labor force. While the unemployment rate is relatively low from a conventional perspective, Dantas and Wray argue that this does not consider the falling participation rate for prime-age workers and wide-spread income stagnation.

Moreover, we often gauge the economy based on the unemployment rate, although, this economic indicator does not consider the fact that 40.6 million Americans remain in poverty. A job paying the current federal minimum wage doesn’t mean a worker will make enough money to live without relying on various forms of welfare. In order to turn this around, we need a new New Deal.

While the New Deal of the 1930s was a centralized program, controlled by the federal government, Dantas and Wray propose that a “new New Deal” would be more efficient by creating a more decentralized workforce, hired by state and local governments to meet the needs of the local communities, with wages paid by the federal government. They propose a Job Guarantee program.

The idea behind this policy is that those who are involuntarily unemployed don’t have to be if the government supplied them with a job. Economist Carlos Maciel further argues that the Job Guarantee program would cost around 1 percent of the U.S. GDP, providing additional jobs through the multiplier effect. When the government invests $1, it multiplies through consumer spending, turning into $2 or $3 in the real economy. In his General Theory, Keynes estimated the multiplier to be somewhere between 2 ½ and 3.

Employment works in the same manner. If one new job is created from the initial government investment, the consumption created by the additional worker will produce more jobs in other industries, whose consumption will take the process further, until the multiplier is reached. Moreover, this program would redistribute money from current welfare programs toward the Job Guarantee program. Those who are currently under the poverty line will not need traditional welfare benefits if they have jobs that pay a living wage.

Perhaps the reason U.S. policymakers are hesitant towards a Job Guarantee program has less to do with economics, and more about an investment in the status quo, whether politically or psychologically. Many Americans are invested in the idea of ‘free markets’, whatever they envision that to be, pushing rational economic discourse and the notion of social justice to the margins, and elevating the politically constructed parallel between self-interest and the partial idea of the American Dream. We must move beyond the free-market ideology, which views everything as profit or loss, win or lose. Only time will tell how this polarized form of reasoning will impact the American people, especially the 40.6 million Americans that are currently below the poverty line, who stand to suffer the most.

Economics as a Science?

By Johnny Fulfer.

Is economics a science?

Could it be? Should it be? The debate is as alive today as it was in the early twentieth century. This article reviews some of the key arguments in the discussion and provides a helpful backdrop against which to rethink the purpose of economics today.

In 1906, Irving Fisher argued that economics is no less scientific than physics or biology. All three aim to discover “scientific laws,” he explained. Even though they may not always be represented in reality, scientific laws are considered fundamental truths in nature. Newton’s first law of motion, for instance, cannot be observed. Only if certain circumstances were met, a body would move uniformly in a straight line. The same holds true for economic science, Fisher concluded.

But not everyone agreed. The discipline was charged with unsound methods.

Specifically, economists were accused of using the deductive method without the necessary level of precision. Jacob Hollander addressed the charges in a 1916 essay. Scientific inquiry involves uniformity and sequence, Hollander maintained. Progression in science relies on the formation of hypotheses, which may at some point become ‘laws.’ Observation and inference are the first steps toward the creation of hypotheses. The final step in the scientific process is verification, which is required before we move from theory to law. Without verification, he argued, “speculation is an intellectual gymnastic, not a scientific process.”

Hollander’s work reveals one of the questions at the heart of this debate: Is verification required, and even possible, given the complexities of economic phenomena? Scholars have the disposition to rely on the works of previous thinkers, Hollander argued, without endeavoring to move beyond familiar perspectives.

This question lives on today.

In a 2013 opinion piece for the New York Times, Stanford economist Raj Chetty argues that science is no more than testing hypotheses with precision. Large macroeconomic questions—such as the cause of recessions or the origin of economic growth—“remain elusive.” This is no different than large questions faced by the medical field, such as the pursuit to cure cancer, he explains. The primary limitation of economics, Chetty argues, is that economists have a limited ability to run controlled experiments for theoretical macroeconomic conclusions. The high monetary cost and ethical standards make these types of controlled experiments impractical. And even if we could run a controlled experiment, it may not matter in the long run, for social changes.

In a 2016 essay, Duncan Foley added to the conversation. He argued that the distinctions between the social and natural sciences are not clear. Both come from the same scientific revolution, and both are influenced by values. The notion that scholars in the natural sciences “pursue truth” is a flawed assumption, Foley argues. Scholars in the natural and social sciences choose which problems to solve and the methodology they use.

This choice involves values since a scholar must value one research project more than another.

Examining the scientific nature of economics, John F. Henry explains that neoclassical economic theory holds a position of influence in society because of its universal and abstract nature. Henry maintains that we should reexamine this assumption of universality. If economics is based on subjective values, how can it be considered universal? Should economists continue making ‘progress toward a more scientific structure of knowledge? This leads us to ask how we define progress. There is no end to this debate.

It seems unproductive to continue asking such questions. Rather than debating whether economics is or is not a science, perhaps we should shift the discussion toward questions that ask why economics needs to be a science in the first place. Where does this desire to be ‘scientific’ come from, and why is it so important for economics to be considered scientific? Perhaps the real issue is the determination to make economics a science.