ABSTRACT
As part of an agenda to improve economics, heterodox economists have sought to promote the virtues of pluralism. However, the tendency to affiliate with similarly situated people and the preference for talking disproportionately with those who share similar perspectives appears to afflict not just the orthodox. Heterodox intellectual communities themselves demonstrate some of the same patterns of insularity so often seen among the mainstream, such as numerous conference sessions containing few women or scholars of non-European descent. Similarly, based on the papers they publish in heterodox journals or their books, it seems that many male heterodox authors apparently feel little compunction to engage substantively with women and feminist scholars. Indeed, except for their more casual clothes, a group of heterodox economists chatting at a reception is often indistinguishable from its mainstream counterpart in gender, race, and ethnicity. Is the goal of pluralism simply to bring greater legitimacy to the points of view of marginalized, disproportionately male, European-descended economists who are currently clamoring for more legitimacy for their heterodox points of view? If so, this would seem to be a self-interested stance oriented toward enhancing the perceived importance of the existing hierarchy of heterodox scholars. Or does pluralism have the broader goal of enhancing human well-being in the world, with the goal of building an economics that is more responsive to the needs of all people, as some promoters of pluralism claim? In imagining an economics that considers the well-being of all people, Amartya Sen has been a pioneer. In 1990, he stunned the world with his estimates that more than a 100 million women have died disproportionately to men during the twentieth century because of a lack of equal access to food, medical attention, and other resources (Sen 1990a). This horrific death toll – larger than the combined casualties of both World Wars, confirmed by Stephan Klasen and Claudia Wink (2003) – reveals an ongoing catastrophe of devastating proportions. Any effort to improve the well-being of all people, which some promoters of pluralism claim as a key goal, must therefore acknowledge that gender bias is one of the most critical economics issues of our time. The tendency, however, has generally been for heterodox economists to think about pluralism not as greater openness to marginalized or underrepresented
topics (however important), but rather as diversity in theoretical and methodological approaches to economics. For instance, why have heterodox economists not by and large applied heterodox approaches to gender equality issues? Is it because heterodox economists do not see that gender relations and gender inequality have much explanatory power in explaining how capitalism or globalization works? Or, do they still think that class is more important than gender and do not understand intersectionality – of class, gender, race, and so forth? Indeed it is by their approaches, such as institutionalism, Marxism, postKeynesian economics, that some key U.S. heterodox groups label themselves. An approach-based definition of pluralism takes the position that neoclassical economics provides an insufficient explanatory approach and that the field would benefit from being more open to alternative conceptual frameworks. But a focus on approaches, by its very nature, is not a focus on economic problems, including those oriented toward improving human lives. This is not to say that the problems and topics addressed by such heterodox groups are not important and compelling. However, there is a difference between an association organized around shared approaches, for example, institutionalism, and one organized around a set of perceived economic concerns where a variety of approaches, including those that use very orthodox theoretical and methodological approaches, are treated as valuable within the framework of scholarship the heterodox group identifies as part of its mission. The omission of concerns relating to gender inequality from the vast majority of economic papers, by the heterodox and orthodox alike, treats gender concerns as not worthy of substantive space in conference sessions, journals, and edited books. A classic example of a heterodox economist omitting feminist perspectives is Geoffrey M. Hodgson’s 2001 book How Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in Social Science. The book includes 1,150 citations, but only sixteen to women and only one to a feminist economist. An alternative book might be written entitled How a Heterodox Economist Forgot Women. Among heterodox books, this book is not unique in its neglect of gender, nor are papers by heterodox economists that fail to cite more than one or two (if any) feminist scholars. Amartya Sen points out that a key reason for the neglect of attention to gender inequality is that the inequality is viewed as “natural.”1 He writes that the notion that an inequality is “natural” or “just” is key to the operation and survival of these arrangements (Sen 1990b: 137, 145). Although feminist thought has emerged and found proponents among heterodox scholars (just as it has among some mainstream scholars), the lack of interest shown by many heterodox economists to research into the causes of and solutions to gender inequality or to the ideas of women and feminists suggests that they, too, believe that gender in equality is perhaps natural, and certainly not so outrageous as to be a research priority. That said, we do acknowledge that some heterodox sessions are diverse, and that a number of male heterodox economists care deeply about these issues, including the chief organizers of the International Confederation of Associations
for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE). This chapter, for example, would never have been included in a mainstream volume. As Sen shows, claims that observed inequalities are “natural” inherently accept social and institutional arrangements underlying the observed inequalities. Further, he argues that such structures can only persist if the legitimacy of the unequal order is not challenged (Sen 1990b: 137, 145). In this context, it is also worth noting what the “approach” definition of pluralism implicitly does not ask, and how this very definition itself may serve as a deterrent to the participation of differently situated participants. The approach definition does not, for example, inquire into the diversity of participants, and ask, “Why are women and women’s perspectives represented so sparsely in heterodox forums?” or “Why are the vast majority of participants in heterodox sessions, conferences, and scholarly publications male? Or European-descended? Or heterosexual?” Nor does it investigate the consequences of this framework and ask, “How do our life experiences influence the economic topics we choose to investigate and consider important?” or “Is it possible that people who are different from me may find different topics of greater immediate urgency, and that perhaps their views merit attention?” It also does not ask, “What can we do to open the door to bring people into economic conversations who are very unlike us? How can we engage with scholars from the South or those who may have a different ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or gender?” A “natural” explanation in economics for the lack of diversity in its forums is that there are few Ph.D. women economists, or few African-descended, or Southern scholars – that the problem is with the pipeline, or with skill deficiencies, or with the quality and importance of the work being done by the scholars who fit those demographics. If the conference session or journal under consideration has a particular theme, say methodology or history of thought, another natural explanation might be that women (or scholars of color, etc.) do not write in this area or submit to the journal, or participate in the association. The typical view is that this is unfortunate and should be changed, but that the situation is most likely unavoidable given the relative shortage of such scholars and the apparent lack of interest of such scholars in those topics. Although many important economics conferences are held around the world, a look at sessions at the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) meetings, the most important annual meetings of economists in the United States, is instructive because of the hegemonic influence of American economists. At the same time, we acknowledge that the ASSA is by no means representative of economic meetings in many other parts of the world. Table 4.1 provides a snapshot of women’s representation in sessions at the ASSA meetings during 2006 through 2008, and compares sessions of the main North American groups often labeled or self-identified as heterodox [the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), the Association for Social Economics (ASE), the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), and the Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE)] with American Economics
Association (AEA) sessions.2 Regrettably, name data does not permit a comparable analysis of participation by other demographic groups of scholars. Except for sessions organized by feminist economists working within heterodox traditions, sessions at the ASSA meetings not only generally contain no engagement with feminist thought, but most also contain few women (or Africandescended scholars, Latino/a scholars, or Southern scholars). As shown in line (4) of the table, women in 2006-2008 comprised only 17.8-22.3 percent of participants in non-IAFFE or IAFFE co-sponsored heterodox economic sessions – a range comparable to and in some years even lower than the share of women in AEA sessions (line 1). Although the overall share of women in heterodox sessions is substantially higher (line 2), this result is only obtained through the defining of IAFFE, an organization devoted to feminist inquiry, as a heterodox organization, and to the willingness of some heterodox organizations to share their session allotments with IAFFE in the form of co-sponsored sessions (many of which are actually organized by society members who also happen to be IAFFE members). While the willingness of some heterodox societies to co-sponsor sessions with IAFFE shows good intent and is to be strongly commended – especially as their co-sponsorship of sessions with IAFFE comes at the expense of other sessions they might run – the non-IAFFE sponsored or IAFFE co-sponsored sessions do not show a greater percentage of women than in AEA sessions on average. This pattern of divided discourse suggests that, even in the more theoretically and methodologically “open-minded” heterodox world, heterodox discourse is fractured into separate communities, with the more predominant participants tending to converse together on topics that engage little with the issues of central concern to feminist scholars or other scholars not well represented in heterodox forums. Perhaps it might also be said that some narrowness is inevitable in a discursive community and that any intellectual community will have a set of shared assumptions, goals, and interests. Scholarly associations typically organize conferences and panels with member participants, who by virtue of their affiliation are inherently screened to fit within the conception of the association. Ditto for
society journals, which typically expect some acknowledgment of the core ideas around which the association builds its identity. Or perhaps it may be argued that it is natural for women and men (or for Northerners and Southerners, etc.) to have different interests insofar as our backgrounds and bodies shape our priorities and knowledge. However, while supportive intellectual communities can nourish ideas and scholars, knowledge constructed in insular intellectual communities is less likely to consider and embrace paradigm-shifting insights. A narrow demographically restricted group of scholars is not likely to identify the most pressing concerns and needs of all people, without giving some platform to their voices. If knowledge is understood to be partial and situated,3 economists, like other knowledge producers, construct accounts of the world colored by their own positions and judgments about the relative importance of various phenomena. Therefore, the very logic behind a call for pluralism, the claim that economic knowledge will be improved through greater openness to alternative perspectives, must also acknowledge that true openness requires more than diversity in theoretical and methodological approaches from people of the same demographic group as the dominant practitioners. A truly substantive, or deep pluralism, must also insist on holding the door open to scholars with different lives and bodies and call for greater diversity in the people who participate in scholarly conversations. Such a pluralism must also anticipate that differently situated practitioners will have different priorities about what economic concerns are the most pressing and even what should count as legitimate inquiry. An inclusive heterodoxy, one that is deeply rather than superficially pluralistic, must therefore seek not just pluralism in theoretical and methodological approach, but also pluralism in knowledge production and pluralism in the topics of investigation. Those who might worry that such pluralism lacks legitimacy or may lead to relativism should be reassured by philosophers of science, who increasingly recognize the social character of knowledge and the importance of pluralism (Longino 2002: 1). Moreover, the idea of knowledge as situated in human experience does not imply that all accounts have to be taken as equally valid, but rather that the authority of each account is limited. Helen Longino argues that scientific method “must be understood as a collection of social, rather than individual, process” with the quality or “objectivity” of the practice depending on “the extent to which a scientific community maintains critical dialogue” and “to the degree that it permits transformative criticism” (Longino 1990: 76). In short, we fail the ideals of free and open inquiry and those we claim to adhere to in promoting pluralism if we fail to engage with scholars whose ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives may rock the foundations of what we believe.
