Blair Fix on the wording of mainstream economics

[Jonathan Nitzan]

By Shimshon Bichler & Jonathan Nitzan

Most critiques of conventional economics focus on the larger arguments. They claim that mainstream economic ideas are ‘removed from reality’, that they emphasize ‘rationality’ and ignore other drives, that they rely on ‘equilibrium’ instead of instability, that they accentuate ‘harmony’ instead of exploitation and power, etc.

But there is another way to look at these questions, and that is to examine the words that mainstream economists use – as well as those they ignore. And that’s what political economist Blair Fix has done in his highly original piece ‘Deconstructing Econospeak’ https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/10/30/deconstructing-econospeak/

The paper is the result of many weeks of clever programming, strategic thinking and plenty of trial and error, which Blair describes in an earlier paper, ‘Working With Google Ngrams: A Data-Wrangling Tale’ https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/10/19/working-with-google-ngrams-a-data-wrangling-tale/

And the results are fascinating.

The figure below is one of many examples. The chart illustrates the extent to which mainstream economics ignores words related to power: most of these words are either neglected or underrepresented, both absolutely and relatively to their general use in the English language. And without the words to describe it, power disappears.

 

• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by jmc.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Jonathan Nitzan.

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[jmc]

Great read! I particularly liked the step-by-step reveal of what cannot be said in neo-classical language. Like Blair’s experience, I was made to think a lot about the significance of the prefix “anti-“. The removal of it is such a simple way to make oppositions in ideology look harmless and to model a world where individual reason is free to calculate gains in utility.

Also, when I think of neo-classical word choice, I think of Gang of Four, who used it for a song title:

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by jmc.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by jmc.

[Blair Fix]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your interest in this post. I’d like to point out two things. First, the data for the post is available at the Open Science Foundation: https://osf.io/afz3p/. I welcome other researchers to see what other results are lurking in the data.

Second, I’m working on an app to visualize the econospeak data. If you have the time, kindly try it out and offer feedback:

https://blair-fix.shinyapps.io/deconstructing-econospeak/

 

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Blair Fix.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Blair Fix.

[Jonathan Nitzan]

This is brilliant and beautiful. Hopefully, it will be used by many.

[Blair Fix]

I’ve ironed out a few bugs in the app. And I’ve added a data download button. Also, if you find some interesting words, you can save the plot image by right clicking. Feel free to upload anything interesting here. I feel like I’m just beginning to explore the data.

[Author]

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