Praising Convention

Economics has always had its discontents. Even in its age of consensus after World War II, there were those who pointed to paths not taken and worried about the choices made. Looking through the presidential and distinguished lectures at the American Economics Association (AEA) annual convention, one discovers that discontent reached new heights in the early 1970s. And yet, on balance, the response that met radical economists’ critique of conventional economics was one of rejection. There were three salient types of responses. One was to indict radical economics as being less than proper science for an alleged lack of empirical achievement and depth, while dismissing its ambitious research agendas. Another response was to accept the ambitions but to deem them already satisfied by existing scholarship. A third response was to move the discussion to an evaluation of Karl Marx’s economics, and so striking injury to the alleged foundations of the radical approach. All three responses are telling of the biographies and trajectories of their authors, Robert Solow, Assar Lindbeck, and Paul Samuelson, and testify a very shallow understanding of what radical economics was about.