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Epistemic flagpoles: economics journals as instrumental rhetoric.

Article Excerpt
I. INSTRUMENTAL RHETORIC

Donald/Deirdre McCloskey has made a number of profound contributions to economics. Nothing in his/her prodigious output can match the masterful article offering clarity on the word rhetoric [1983]. Clarity, however, brought anxiety. "You mean economics is concerned with trying to persuade? Here I thought we were pursuing (and publishing) truth." But, as McCloskey taught us, the essential task in science is to offer the more compelling account. The central purpose driving each of us is to bring others to our side. We do that by convincing them that we have the best story to tell about a particular matter.

An academic department is a holding company, and each member of a department can be thought of as a one-person multi-product firm. Our output is disciplinary literacy among undergraduate students, specialized training for graduate students at some universities, dissertation supervision of graduate students at those universities, and a record of published output. In all of these activities, the "owner" of the firm is intent on imparting her particular insights to others. While academic success is measured across all of these outputs, some outputs carry more weight than others. In economics, journal articles are trumps. Of course mature scholars soon start to write books, but journal articles establish authors' reputations that books then elaborate. Academics bring others to their side by speaking with clarity and conviction to other members of the same discipline.

A discipline is a self-organizing group of individuals sharing a common set of language and concepts, employing compatible empirical protocols, and appealing to rather uniform standards of "truth" The purpose of particular disciplines is to tell others what they would be well-advised to believe about the facts and phenomena that fall under the ambit of said disciplines. Are you worried about genetically modified organisms? Ask a geneticist or a plant breeder. Are you worried about the safety of a particular food item? Ask a food scientists or a microbiologist. Are you curious about the probability of rain next Tuesday? Ask a meteorologist. Are you puzzled that share prices rise when a large corporation dismisses 30,000 of its employees? Ask an economist. Disciplines are epistemic communities. Members of these communities communicate (note the similarity) through a variety of means. Journals play several roles for an epistemic community: (1) they announce the latest research fads; (2) they validate the credibility of fledgling members of that particular community; and (3) they establish the enduring standards by which current and future members of the community shall be judged in the competition for high status within that particular community. Journals are epistemic flagpoles up which ideas are run to see who will and will not salute. Journal editors control the flagpole.

This can be a troublesome calling. In a way that is familiar to the super-rich or the beautiful, you can never be sure if others are nice to you because you are eminently likeable, or whether their seeming fondness for you springs from other motives. When they respond with immoderate wrath on receiving a rejection letter we get a rough indication of their enduring attachment. A sense of humor is an essential pre-requisite for this job. I have two rejection letters at the ready. The first is of British origins:

"We have received your manuscript --. You will be pleased to learn that we find it to be both novel and interesting. Unfortunately, the part that is interesting is not novel, and the part that is novel is not interesting."

The second letter, said to be Chinese in origin, is:

"We have received your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper it would be impossible for us to publish any work of a lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that, in the next thousand years, we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity."

I have, on very few occasions, invoked the first letter. The second one will not be used.

I was asked to address the "experiences of journal editors." The interest therefore seems to concern the various perspectives that editors of economics journals bring to their job as keepers of the flagpole.

II. THE JOURNAL LAND ECONOMICS

First, a bit about my particular flagpole. Land Economics was established by Richard T. Ely in 1924 as the Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics. Ely, an eminent economist at the University of Wisconsin, was one of the founders of the American Economic Association. He was also an adherent of the "social gospel" movement, and referred to himself as a Christian Socialist. In the waning years of the 19th century the State Superintendent of Education, an ex officio member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, alarmed at Ely's public positions, launched an aggressive attack against Ely--criticizing both his support of laborers in their quest for improved working conditions, as well as his teaching of "socialism and other dangerous theories." He called for...

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