[lbo-talk] more on the econ Nobel

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Sean:
> Isn't this basically the same sort of consecration that Bank of Sweden
folks
> sought for the economic sciences--which at the time were being impressed
> upon the post-colonial world with the same hegemonic aspirations as
> Shakespeare was in the 19th century?  With the implementation of
> institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, it seems like much of the
> post-war hegemonic order was based around the claim that economics and
> development were as predictable as the chemical fertilizers being sold as
> part of the Green Revolution.  Though the prize is Swedish, US economic
> "scientists" have one the prize well over half of the time (by my rough
> count, 38 out of 54, not counting this year).  I am not claiming a
> conspiracy, but the US certainly had an interest in funding research that
> can prove the claims of certain branches of social science are objectively
> true enough for policy implementation on a global scale.

Interesting.  It always amazed me how something as bourgeois as the Nobel
Prize idea - especially in economics - came out of that quintessential
social welfare democracy Sweden.  The US or the UK would be a more natural
home for it.  Perhaps this was the way the Swedish capital, having lost its
influence, got back at Sweden for going social democratic :).

Wojtek