winding up economists: a research methodology

Fabian Muniesa has published a working paper 'The Problem with Economics: Naturalism, Critique and Performativity', that he also gave at a Goldsmiths conference I co-organised a few years back.

It introduces a new methodology for economic sociology, known as the 'breaching thought experiment', which in layman's terms means trying (hypothetically) to annoy people, in this instance economists. If one fails to annoy them, then finding ways to laugh at them is a good alternative. I predict that this field will grow rapidly over the coming years.

Adherents to this method need to identify lines of questioning, which lead the interviewee down culdesacs of their own making. Fabian's paper offers five experiments to run, each of which attempts to demonstrate that the relationship between economic knowledge and object is not adequately thought through. Here's one that I designed myself, which can be played on all economists of above average intelligence:

Q: What is a market?
A: it's an institution
Q: who owns it?
A: often nobody, sometimes a private company
Q: so is it a private asset or not?
A: not really. Even if it is owned, it has considerable positive externalities. It's what we call a 'public good'.
Q: what is a 'public good'?
A: It's one of the four varieties of 'market failure'.
Q: So you're telling me that a well-functioning market is a 'market failure'.

Once you've stopped laughing, however long that may take, it's worth considering that somewhere buried within my smart-arse riddle may be everything that's wrong with contemporary political perspectives on the economy, but can't be articulated. On the other hand, if your response to the final line is 'well, yes, obviously', then you are probably an economist, and might want to lie down in a dark room for a few hours and have a think about things.

Comments

[Fabian]

Thanks Will, I appreciate your methodological encouragement -- The method was first tested here (but with an audience of historians of science, anthropologists and philosophers, not of economists): http://www.ccic-cerisy.asso.fr/anthropologie06.html