In conversation with

Exordium

The Strangeness of the Discipline

A Good Scientific Conversation

Suspicion and Derision in Everyday Life

I learned first-hand that economists are considered less than likeable company. Get introduced as an economist in a social gathering and conversation dims. "How interesting," someone says politely. Sensing the discomfort, I add quickly that I'm also involved in philosophy. "Ah." A flicker of approval. With the momentarily captive audience, I tell them I study the world of the arts. "How interesting." Eyes light up! The economist is now talking about something with which they are socially comfortable — and in which they are interested.

It is strange that the economist — knowledgeable about a subject that commands commonplace activity, that fills newspapers daily, that can break the most powerful people on earth — is a socially unpopular companion. It is strange that so many routinely skip the economics articles in their newspapers and tune out when the economy is being discussed on television. It is strange to know how unknown most economists are. And while economists endeavor to be heard, their books, with few exceptions, have dismal sales. (I am not talking about "how to" business books — how to be a leader, how to have vision, how to make money out of nothing — general economics is not business economics.)

Economists experience worse than a mere lack of interest in their work. Dare to hold forth at a dinner party on the latest economic theory and more than boredom may ensue. The wife of a colleague once actually nodded off at the table while we were engaged in our econ babble — she was tired but I doubt she would have fallen asleep if we had been talking art. And the application of economics is more often ridiculed than intelligently considered. At one college faculty meeting, the item up for resolution was a shortage of parking spaces. An economist suggested auctioning them, a perfectly sensible solution in our world. English teachers, historians, scientists, et al — some of them incredibly creative people — were appalled. The economist was astounded by his colleagues' economic naiveté.

Culturalists — people who care about art, literature or anything else cultural — call economists "Philistines," "rationalists" and a host of other names that characterize them as less dimensional. They consider economics, and subsequently economists, devoid of culture. After I assumed a chair in the Economics of Art and Culture at Rotterdam I was dared to try to understand the economics of artists' work. Some opinions of these efforts are not printable here.

Representation of the discipline is nearly non-existent in literature. Economists do not appear in novels and economic themes are suppressed. There are exceptions — Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Dickens's Hard Times, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle, and various novels by Sinclair Lewis — but they are just that, exceptions. The only economic historian in literature is the unspeakably boring husband of Ibsen's Hadde Gabler. The denial of economic themes in literature echoes the condemnation of money in religious writings and traditions, especially Christian. The New Testament tells how Jesus banished money exchangers from the temple, that "you cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew, 6:24), and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (ibid, 16:26). Even though the Bible refers more to money than to, say, love, the references are never encouraging for those in love of money.

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Throughout the centuries, religious practice and the interpretation of religious texts have adapted somewhat to the intensification of commercial life. Calvin's reading of the bible, for example, allowed for hard work as an economic norm, and arguably saw a blessing in amassing wealth. But, while quite a few religious leaders demonstrate deftness in the management of their financial affairs, churches generally keep the economic perspective of life at bay. This is strange considering how economics permeates daily life.