DECODING ECONOMIC IDEOLOGY

Abstract

Economics derives its power from an illusion of scientific objectivity. From the very beginning of the discipline, economists have gone to great lengths to craft their work, excluding work, workers, and working conditions. Two particular episodes illustrate this failing. Adam Smith's story about the pin factory never mentioned that the pin manufacturers were working with the world's largest industrial operation in the world, located outside of Smith's little village and that the owners were close friends. The French documents, which he plagiarized, described pin makers' unhealthy working conditions. A much older steam-driven pin factory was famous. Finally, other than describing the division of labor work, workers, and working conditions mostly disappears from his work. After the Paris Commune, to respond to Marx, economists crafted marginalism, but, they opposed marginalism in their policy recommendations and organized the American Economic Association as a bulwark against marginalism.