Page 80 - Global Political Economy_Understanding The International Economic Order

NEO CLASS ICAL C ONCEP T OF AN ECONO MY
addressed the equity-efficiency trade-off and have also carried out re-
search on the most efficient distribution of wealth and property rights
to achieve the social conditions most conducive to rapid economic
growth. Many economists have strong personal concerns about
wealth inequities; even an economic conservative like Milton Fried-
man has proposeda negative income tax as a solution to growing
inequalities in American society. Nevertheless, concern over the distri-
bution of income lies outside the primary focus of the discipline. In-
stead, economists generally accept and seldom challenge the legiti-
macy of the status quo distribution of wealth and property rights in
society, an attitude that sometimes leads to indifference to social is-
sues. An admittedly unscientific survey of Princeton University econo-
mists regarding the economic priorities of the first Clinton Adminis-
tration revealedsuch a conservative social bias. All but one of the
half-dozen economists interviewed proclaimed that the newly elected
President’s first priority should be to leave the economy—then in a
recession—alone. The one exception was the economist-president of
Princeton, HaroldShapiro, who stressed the importance of maintain-
ing healthy social welfare programs! 35
At the international level, economists generally assume what
Charles Kindleberger calls a “cosmopolitan” rather than a nationalist
stance. 36 With few exceptions, economists believe in free trade and
oppose protectionist practices; they strongly believe that open and
unrestrictedmarkets are the best way to increase consumer choice
andmaximize efficient use of the planet’s scarce resources. At the
same time, however, economists qua economists place a low priority
on the distribution of wealth within and among national economies.
They eschew the controversial issue of “distributive justice” because
it involves a value judgment and thus lies outside the realm of eco-
nomic science. Many critics regardmainstream economics as politi-
cally conservative andtherefore tolerant of the evils of the domestic
and international status quo. Indeed, the beliefs that resources are
scarce andmust be usedefficiently, andthat hardchoices must be
made among alternative uses, reinforce the conservative bias pervad-
ing the discipline.
Economists in general believe that trade and economic intercourse
promote peaceful relations among nations because the mutual bene-
fits of trade and expanding interdependence foster cooperative rela-

35
Princeton Alumni Weekly, 10 March 1993, 56.
36
Charles P. Kindleberger, Power and Money: The Economics of International Poli-
tics and the Politics of International Economics (New York: Basic Books, 1970).
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