"Vanity of the Philosopher" From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics

ISBN-10: 0472114964

ISBN-13: 9780472114962

Edition: 2005

Authors: Sandra Peart, David M. Levy

List price: $64.95

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Description:

The "Vanity of the Philosopher" continues the themes introduced in Levy's acclaimed book How the Dismal Science Got Its Name. Here, Peart and Levy tackle the issues of racism, eugenics, hierarchy, and egalitarianism in classical economics and take a broad view of classical economics' doctrine of human equality. Responding to perennial accusations from the left and the right that the market economy has created either inequality or too much equality, the authors trace the role of the eugenics movement in pulling economics away from the classical economist's respect for the individual toward a more racist view at the turn of the century. The "Vanity of the Philosopher" reveals the…

Book details

List price: $64.95
Copyright year: 2005
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 10/10/2005
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 344
Size: 6.00" wide x 9.00" long x 1.30" tall
Weight: 1.518
Language: English

David M. Levy is Associate Professor of Economics and Research Associate, Center for Study of Public Choice, George Mason University.




Equality versus hierarchy



Analytical egalitarianism and its opposition



Perceiving race and hierarchy



Classical economics and the cattle herders



Hierarchy and transformation : "chemical political economy"



Denying human homogeneity : eugenics and the making of postclassical economics



Statistical prejudice : from eugenics to immigration



Picking losers for sterilization : eugenics as demographic central planning



Debating sympathy



Sympathy and its discontents : "greatest happiness" versus the "general good"



"Who are the canters?" : the coalition of evangelical-economic egalitarians



A discipline without sympathy : the happiness of the majority and its demise



Darwin and the differential capacity for happiness : from cardinal to ordinal utility theory



The theorist in the model



Analytical egalitarianism, anecdotal evidence, and information aggregation via proverbial wisdom



Conclusion



Sympathy and the past : our "stock in dead people" reconsidered


Postscript : a letter from M. Ali Khan



Galton's two papers on voting as robust estimation