Category Archives: History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy

Institutional Economics

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on 1st July 1999 by Brian Easton.

Extract from The Whimpering of the State. p.123-124.

Keynotes: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

In 1931, at the age of 24 [Sutch] went to the Department of Economics at Columbia, at the time the most important in the United States, where it taught the dominant economic paradigm of the times ‘institutionalism’.(1) The neoclassical synthesis (often abbreviated to ‘neoclassical’) a combination of the macroeconomics that Keynes pioneered and the modern theory of markets (including a welfare economics which emphasises their beneficial outcomes), strongly laced with mathematical techniques only becomes important after the Second World War. Institutionalists trace their origin to Thorstein Veblin. Among the best-known are Gunnar Myrdal and John Kenneth Galbraith and Maurice Clarke, who lead inter-war Columbian economics.

The Whimpering Of the State: Policy After MMP

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Distributional Economics, Education, Governance, Health, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Literature and Culture, Macroeconomics & Money, Political Economy & History, Regulation & Taxation, Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on 1st July 1999 by Brian Easton.

Auckland University Press, 1999. 269pp.

The policy process has changed dramatically following the introduction of MMP. Fascinated by the theatre of politics, we too easily ignore the major changes in policy approaches and outcomes. Today, without an assured parliamentary majority the government has to consult over its policies rather than impose them. Along with the increasing recognition that the policies of the past have failed, the policy blitzkrieg has almost ceased and commercialisation is being shelved.

The Whimpering of the State looks at the first three MMP years with the same lively, broad -ranging and informed approach as Easton’s successful The Commercialisation of New Zealand, which described the winner-takes-all regime before 1996. Again there are case studies: health, education, science, the arts, taxation. retirement policy, and infrastructure. Policy possibilities are explored. Yet, as the title of the book suggests, any releif from the ending of Rogernomics is offset be a realistic pessimism arising from a shrewd analysis of the continuing deficiencies in New Zealand’s political and social structure. Although written for the general public, this book will also be read by politicians, policy analysts and students, and will shape policy thinking in the MMP era. Publisher’s Blurb

What Happened to the Nation Building State in New Zealand?

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Political Economy & History on 21st April 1999 by Brian Easton.

Paper for the New Zealand & Australian Studies section of the Conference of the Western Social Sciences Association, April 21-24 1999, Fort Worth, Texas.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Brent McClintock’s “Gordon Coates and the Nation-Building State: 1920-1935”, which precedes this paper, also sets its stage. [1] In the interwar period there arose a group of New Zealanders who were committed to use the instruments of the state to build a New Zealand nation distinctive and independent (as much as it could be). Coates may have been the earliest, but numerous other New Zealanders in politics, the public service, corporations, and cultural life also participated. Most are recognized in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography and many have full biographies published or in the process of being written: politicians Peter Fraser, Apirana Ngata, and Walter Nash (as well as Coates); public servants Clarence Beeby, Joe Heenan, Alistair McIntosh, Douglas Robb, and Bill Sutch; businessmen James Fletcher and James Wattie; writer Rex Fairburn and Frank Sargeson (with prominent artists coming a little later). Even so, acknowledging such great totara trees but locates the bush over which they towered: that bush below was dense with others equally committed to the nation building state. Curiously, there are no obvious women for the list. The tallest was Te Puea, but her vision was to build the Tainui nation.

His Purpose Is Clear: Reflecting a Life Of Thought and Experience

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Political Economy & History on 13th February 1999 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 13 February 1999.

Keywords: Political Economy & History;

It was perhaps inevitable that Bruce Jesson, growing up in the Canterbury of the 1950s with a freezing worker father, would study Marx. Christchurch is often said to be our most class conscious city. Actually, all our big cities have acute class differences. In Wellington it matters whether you are a political insider or an outsider; in Auckland the measure is money. Because Christchurch does not have the politics or the easy money, its differences are more evidently social status.

The Soros Manifesto

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 16th January 1999 by Brian Easton.

The Endangered Open Society Propels an Urgent Plea For World Financial Reform
Listener 16 January, 1999.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

One of the more bizarre events of the late 1980s was the right wing think tank, the Mont Pelerin Society, holding a conference in Christchurch in honour of philosopher Karl Popper. The approach – one would hardly call it a philosophy – of the majority of attenders was an anathema to Popper. Especially Roger Douglas, whose paper reported his infamous blitzkrieg policy implementation principles, in which democracy is over-ridden, in the total certainty that his policies were correct. Popper would have been interested in the extent that the policies worked – they have not – but Douglas’s unwavering certainty in the truth of his vision would be totally unacceptable. For Popper knowledge is fallible. One constantly reviewed one’s hypotheses to judge their truth. Scepticism is at the heart of his approach, not ideological belief. Douglas’s paper was the equivalent of devil worship in the Popperian church.

Richard Thaler’s Savings Principles

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Retirement & Savings on 7th January 1999 by Brian Easton.

From The Whimpering of the State: Policy after MMP p.75

Keywords History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy

People do not behave with the rationalism of the economic theory on which commercialisation was based, especially over their savings. The standard economic theory of individual behaviour is contradicted by the evidence of irrationality (or ‘quasi-rationality’).(1) In practice, as has been attested by numerous studies, the major predictions of economic rationalism fail.(2)

What Adam Smith Really Said About the “invisible Hand”

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on 26th October 1998 by Brian Easton.

When scholars make mistakes it is best to ‘fess up’. As I did when Keith Rankin pointed out I had misquoted Adam Smith on the Invisible Hand. It has been on his website since. I am transporting it to mine (with my letter at the beginning) so that its search facility can identify it. Brian…
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Trying to Understand Dr Sutch

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Political Economy & History on 2nd September 1998 by Brian Easton.

Revised Version of the paper in the Stout Research Centre Seminar Series, Wednesday 2 September 1998.

Keywords History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History

William Ball Sutch, publicly known as “Dr Sutch” and privately as “Bill”, could be remembered as one of a handful of public servants who shaped economic and social policy between the 1930s and the 1960s, to become the father of the export diversification of the 1970s; he should be remembered for his contribution to the early years of the United Nations, especially in the creation of an independent international public service, and the continuation of UNICEF; he will be remembered for being tried and acquitted under the Official Secrets Act; he must be remembered as an intellectual who set down a distinctive and influential vision of New Zealand’s economic and social development.

Heretic to High Priest: Krugman ‘sort of’ Predicted the Asian Crisis Three Years Earlier

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 15th August 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 15 August, 1998

Keywords Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy, Macroeconomics & Money

“A decade ago, he was the most celebrated heretic. Today, Paul Krugman is the high priest of economics, his career transformed by the unintended consequences of his own iconoclasm. Some of his radical instincts remain; but they now serve a different purpose. The vigour with which Krugman once probed the outer limits of economics is now used to protect its core values. Through his popular writings, he defends the dismal science by exposing fallacies in the public discussion of economics issues.” (Prospect, April 1998)

Open and Closed: Is the US Economy a Good Model for New Zealand?

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 25th April 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener 25 April, 1998.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Numerous readers have asked me to reply to Debasis Bandyopadnyay’s review of my In Stormy Seas: the Post-War New Zealand Economy (7 March 1998). I do not think that quite appropriate, especially since dealing with the review’s errors and misunderstandings would be tedious to the reader. But he raised one issue so central to the economic debate, that it is useful to address it here. The review argued I was unaware of some of the current fashionable theories of the supply-side of economic growth. It did not say that I gave a quite different account of the growth process, based on the external demand side.

Dogma and Dissent: Do We Need an Anti Economist League?

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 17th January 1998 by Brian Easton.

Listener 17 January, 1998.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

The Anti Economist League (AEL) is an inevitable reaction to the state of New Zealand economics. Their objectives are (1) expose the invalidity of economists’ dogma, and (2) eliminate economists from public policy making. This columnist has no difficulty with the first aim but is understandably nervous about the second.

In Stormy Seas: The Post-war New Zealand Economy

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Macroeconomics & Money, Political Economy & History, Regulation & Taxation on 1st November 1997 by Brian Easton.

Otago University Press, 1997. 343pp.

A detailed look at the New Zealand economy in the twentieth century, and in particular its course since World War II. This is not just a history but a narrative about a problem’, defining, and ‘hopefully contributing to an understanding that will aid to its solutions’.

In Stormy Seas asks pertinent questions about some of our favourite national myths. The intial chapters examine the ongoing debate about the New Zealand economy, looking at such factors as external impact and internal response, the business cycle and growth, and problems of financing investment. Structural transformation, the farm sector, industry and energy, efficiency and flexibility, and ‘the market’ are all explored before the book closes with a discussion of the aftermath of Rogernomics and the decade of greed. (Publisher’s blurb)

THE COMMERCIALISATION OF SIN AND REAL ECONOMIC ETHICS

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on 24th August 1997 by Brian Easton.

Presentation in series “Creation of a New Ethic” St Andrews on the Terrace, Sunday August 24, 1997. Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Exactly at the time I was invited to contribute to this series, I was pondering over the notion of the “commercialisation of sin”. The title parallels that of a…
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Was There a Treaty Of Waitangi?: Was It a Social Contract?

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Maori, Political Economy & History on 1st April 1997 by Brian Easton.

A revised version of ‘Was There a Treaty of Waitangi, and was it a Social Contract?’ Archifacts, April 1997, p.21-49.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Maori; Political Economy & History;

This paper arose out of consideration of what at first seemed to be a very straightforward problem.[1] In 1989 I was working with the Maori claims in regard to the broadcasting reforms.[2] I have told much of that elsewhere,[3] but the matter led to an investigation of the origins of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in order to understand the entitlements to the property rights of the radio frequency spectrum by the Maori and by the Crown.

Profit or Public Good: There Is Logic to Roger Kerr’s Views on Business Respon

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 15th March 1997 by Brian Easton.

Listener 15 March, 1997

keywords Business Economics & Finance; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy

This column agrees with Roger Kerr, the executive director of the Business Roundtable, that “we should not confuse corporate social responsibility with gestures such as saving endangered species or sponsoring Christmas concerts in the park. If they are honest, most businesses that make these efforts admit they do to add value to their firm or brand.”

Institutional Economics and the Theory Of Value: Essays in Honor Of M. Tool

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on 1st December 1996 by Brian Easton.

Edited by Charles M.A. Clark (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston,1995)
Review published in Prometheus, Vol 14, No 2, December 1996, p 291-293.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

According to the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics institutional economics has been the principle school of heterodox economic thought, apart from Marxism. Some of its practitioners are extremely well known – Thorstein Veblen, Wesley Mitchell, Gunnar Myrdal, J.K. Galbraith, and Ken Boulding (perhaps Joseph Schumpter) – but it is rare for the school to impinge on the central economics paradigm of neo-classical economics. The two seem like distant cousins, who are still not talking after a feud over the family inheritance.

Women in Economics

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 24th June 1995 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 24 June, 1995 Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Post-modernism is a term which has entered into intellectual discourse over the last quarter of a century. Initially it referred to architecture, went into the other arts and literature, and more recently sneaked into some of the social sciences. Because of its individualistic and…
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Contributions to listener Books Of the Year:1994

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Literature and Culture on 24th December 1994 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 24 December, 1994.
Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Literature and Culture;

Edward Said’s exciting 1993 Reith lectures are now published as Representations of the Intellectual (Vintage $16.95). With passion and conviction he puts intellectuals at the centre of civilization and at the margins of society, charging them with the moral duty to address the public, as an outsider independent of government and corporation. The short book, only 90 pages, is packed with inspiration, replete with eminently quotable passages. I want to give it to all my friends who walk the lonely path of the intellectual, to say that they are not alone, that the isolation they experience is integral to their chosen profession.

A painter who walked such a lonely path is commemorated in Francis Hodgkins: Paintings and Drawings (AUP, $59.95) by Iain Buchanan, Michael Dunn, and Elizabeth Eastmond. A gorgeous selection of her subtle and sensuous works: images worth pouring over, in the way one savour’s Said’s ideas.