Recently, Walden Bello wrote an opinion piece on Rappler about ‘The existential crisis of mainstream economics’. Days later, Alfredo R. Paloyo, a former student of his, now an economics professor, wrote a reply, ‘The phantom menace of ‘neoliberalism’’.
To oversimplify things, Bello declares a supposed crisis in the field of economics, basically accusing its leading scholars of corruption and collaboration with the grand old enemy, the Capitalists. It’s the kind of radical criticism I’ve come to expect from committed socialists like him—and I say that with genuine respect for their efforts, even if I admit to also feeling some fatigue and disillusionment about their unyielding hardline stance on matters of political economy. They raise important questions, and rightfully focus on the plight of the masses, but their specific criticisms often seem generated and amplified by ideology more than by genuinely critical study, resulting in many statements that crumble upon closer, rational inspection.
Paloyo in his response expresses disappointment in what he sees as Bello’s misrepresentation, or misunderstanding, of what actually concerns contemporary economic scholars. Bello’s view is clouded by his ideological lenses, which he stubbornly clings to, unable to see that economics today has given up grand, sweeping, and narratively satisfying theorizing, instead occupying itself with empirical studies that meticulously and rigorously try to establish causal inference.
It’s important to note that Paloyo has no intentions of destroying Bello. “It brings me no pleasure to write this” is how he begins his response, and towards the end acknowledges the “genuinely important work” Bello has done “on structural adjustment, on Philippine political economy, on the human costs of corporate globalization.” I’ve read a little of Bello’s work myself, as an undergraduate more than a decade ago, and it was in one of his books where I first encountered an in-depth analysis of the structural issues of Philippine economy—with the diagnosis, of course, of neoliberalism as its primary disease.
But economics is hard. Its subject matter—entire societies and all the massive systems that comprise them—is so astoundingly complex that it’s a marvel anyone can make any claim to understand it, even just carefully defined parts of it. That complexity is also why it’s no surprise that geniuses continue to dispute so-called findings, and why research conclusions continue to be contested. In this light, the always-confident and actually often-convincing analyses of left-leaning pronouncements on various economic issues, which I myself have often taken as Correct over the years, deserve careful reconsideration.
At the same time, the complexity and difficulty of the search for economic truths should not be cause for despair or surrender. Indeed, of the many criticisms one could throw at leftist ideologues (and their diagnoses and prescriptions for economic ills), the lack of trying to arrive at a comprehensive understanding isn’t one of them. Perhaps it’s this courage and commitment that attracted me to their school of thought in the first place, especially since in the Philippines there seems to be no else who bothers; some of the opposing reactionary camps, if they might be called that, do not even seem to try, content with knee-jerk pandering and populist policymaking with no cohesive long-term plan nor purpose. (Although, I feel it necessary to state, I’ve never agreed with the call to violence from the more radical ranks of any side, whichever form or name it has taken, be it the armed struggle on the countryside or the war on criminality in the cities.)
The project of economics, the pursuit of ever-better understanding of society’s economic mechanics, however quixotic it might feel at times, is nevertheless worth pursuing, because—as the economist Angus Deaton says, and in this aspect Bello and Paloyo can agree upon—its ultimate object and goal is human welfare itself. It is the social science that sits in the strongest position of influence, and therefore the one most critical to achieving the betterment of many.