14 - The grammar of political economy

Summary

This chapter explores the rhetoric of political debate about economic issues. Evidently, the art is thriving; seldom in history have madmen in authority distilled such frenzy from scribblers. Still, economists seem to devote little systematic thought to the politics of persuasion.

Rhetoric is a matter of language, and language is dual, a matter of transmission and of reception. Between economics and politics, transmission and reception must occur across a cultural divide. The rhetoric of political economy, of “economic discourse in the political arena,” is, linguistically speaking, a rhetoric of translation, of intercultural communication. To understand it properly you have to have a sense of nuance in both cultures.

One issue – not the primary topic of this chapter – concerns the tactics, the modes of expression, the idiosyncratic professional styles of economists themselves, their manner of comportment in the political arena, for example, in congressional hearings. Take the question of metaphor: What are the images that economists think legislators find persuasive?

On January 19, 1982, the Joint Economic Committee held a hearing of singular distinction. Three witnesses appeared: Professor Wassily W. Leontief of New York University, Nobel Laureate in Economics for 1973; Professor James Tobin of Yale, Nobel Laureate for 1981; and Professor Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Nobel Laureate for 1980. Professor Leontief testified first.