I have a problem with ALL academics getting captured by discourse (and most economists are pretty bad). The discourse is just different in other fields and may appear to be more "grounded" because the discourse is closer to your private model of good analytic discourse.
However, I don't think Bowles, Gintes, and/or Folbre are good examples of people getting "captured by discourse". There are much worse examples in mainstream academia (which Doug regularly posts to this list). They are probably much less than "average" in my own informal sense of the matter. Although, I must admit I have not read much of their academic work since I stopped taking classes from them.
Doug's specificly mentioned models of boss-worker relations. I do remember that Bowles and Gintis would have been happy to find quantifiable variables or their proxies, but never forced that into their work They instead do what most economists do--just posit some general (and simple) functional form so you can say stuff axiomatically about the relations (i.e., paying a worker above the rate in which they would put minimal effort will mean more effort). You would have to attack their choice of functional form or the shape of their curves (it's all about the choice of concavity vs. convexity and creating lemmas). The more advanced math stuff just posits more sophisticated functional forms onto variables and their relations (I agree that here it is easy to apply sophisticated functional forms to unsophisticated ideas or inappropriate proxies). I personally always try to use the simplest funtional form I can for any work I do. Some people have the opposite problem.
So, I find it strange that anyone would find it inappropriate to use general math functions to say radical or neato things. It's just like using prepostions in language (up, down, above, below, between, in, under, over). Obviously, there is a problem with not translating your work back to "grounded" discourse but that is a separate problem.
Jim
At 02:52 PM 2/21/01, you wrote:
>Suresh Naidu wrote:
>
>>Given the general aversion to techie-math stuff often encountered among
>>lefty students, this becomes even worse. I'm a firm believer in tearing
>>down the master's house with his own tools, so I like using mathematics
>>in economics...If the bourgeois economists like it so much, lets pin
>>them to the wall with it.
Doug Henwood:
>At UMass, Bowles, Gintis, and Folbre are trying to do this math thing, and
>it seems to me that they just end up getting captured by the discourse. A
>few years ago, I heard Folbre - who I generally think is quite smart, so
>this depressed me - give a paper modeling patriarchy using the equity
>holder as residual claimant model from corporate finance/governance
>theory. I guess she was trying to seduce the followers of Eugene Fama into
>feminism, but I just don't think that's going to work. Bowles & Gintis put
>out these models of boss-worker relations, with variables for work effort
>and supervisory costs - but those are completely unquantifiable things.
>The equations look impressive on the page, but they're built on mush. And
>Gintis himself has become a weird reactionary along with his embrace of math.
"Flower don't you choke so hard It's envy makes the weeds go mad"
-Kenny Anderson