The Curious Culture of Economic Theory
By: Ran Spiegler – Tel Aviv University and University College London
When is a theoretical result taken seriously enough for economic application? How do theorists actively try to influence this judgment? What determines whether a new theoretical subfield adopts a “pure” or an “applied” style? How do theorists respond to economists’ penchant for “rational” explanations of human behavior? These are just some of the questions regarding the professional culture of contemporary economic theory that Ran Spiegler attempts to answer in this incisive essay collection, The Curious Culture of Economic Theory. In exploring these questions, Spiegler addresses the norms that economic theorists apply as they produce, evaluate, and disseminate research.
Introducing a new genre—a kind of cultural criticism of economic theory—the essays in this unique collection highlight elements of style and rhetoric that characterize classic pieces of economic theory from the last quarter century. For each piece, Spiegler offers a precise yet accessible exposition of modern classics of economic theory while placing them in the broader context of the field’s professional culture. (Open access)
The Currency of Politics: The Political Theory of Money from Aristotle to Keynes
By: Stefan Eich – Georgetown University
The Currency of Politics takes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule.
Money appears to be beyond the reach of democratic politics, but this appearance—like so much about money—is deceptive. Even when the politics of money is impossible to ignore, its proper democratic role can be difficult to discern. Stefan Eich examines six crucial episodes of monetary crisis, recovering the neglected political theories of money in the thought of such figures as Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. He shows how these layers of crisis have come to define the way we look at money, and argues that informed public debate about money requires a better appreciation of the diverse political struggles over its meaning.
Eich’s extraordinary book provides an essential guide to thinking about the politics of money.
Adam Tooze – Columbia University
The Ordinal Society
By: Marion Fourcade, Kieran Healy – University of California, Berkeley, Duke University
The personal data we give in exchange for convenient tools like Gmail and Instagram provides the raw material for predictions about everything from our purchasing power to our character. The Ordinal Society shows how these algorithmic predictions influence people’s life chances and generate new forms of capital and social expectation: nobody wants to ride with an unrated cab driver anymore or rent to a tenant without a risk score. As members of this society embrace ranking and measurement in their daily lives, new forms of social competition and moral judgment arise. Familiar structures of social advantage are recycled into measures of merit that produce insidious kinds of social inequality.
While we obsess over order and difference—and the logic of ordinality digs deeper into our behaviors, bodies, and minds—what will hold us together? Fourcade and Healy warn that, even though algorithms and systems of rationalized calculation have inspired backlash, they are also appealing in ways that make them hard to relinquish.
This groundbreaking and revelatory book illuminates the seismic social changes provoked by the ubiquity of data. Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy show how in this new ordinal society, where everything and everyone is ranked, social stratification is created, codified, and in the end legitimized like never before. Far-reaching and deeply researched, this is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to understand inequality in the twenty-first century.
Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley
The Road to Freedom – Economics and the Good Society
By: Joseph E Stiglitz – Columbia University
The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics—including recent advances in which Stiglitz has played such an important role—reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Drawing on the work of contemporary philosophers, Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms—one that considers with care what to do when one person’s freedom conflicts with another’s. We must reimagine our existing economic and legal systems and embrace forms of collective action, including regulation and investment, if we are to create an innovative society in which everyone can flourish. The task could not be more urgent, and Stiglitz’s latest book is essential reading for those committed to the American ideal of an economic and political system that delivers well-being, opportunity, and meaningful freedoms for all.
