Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

The ersatz Nobel Prize steered economics toward one ideological species while denying that intent

Properties2
tagsja-picks, xref, question, contrarian_or_surprising, trade, singleton, category/contrarian-or-surprising
aliases@philip_mirowski_nine_2020, loc. 478

3 min read

The ersatz Nobel Prize steered economics toward one ideological species while denying that intent

Evidence

But, returning to the 1960s, we observe that the Nobel dynamic in Sweden existed to promote a certain species of economics, not all possible versions of economics indiscriminately. The legitimate profession had to be constrained to a sharply circumscribed intellectual ambit. This is another fact to which Åsbrink, Lindbeck, and Lundberg could not openly admit. Lindbeck, in his retrospective offered to an American audience, made the smarmy comment that the ideological perspectives of the prizewinners “have, of course, been neglected.” It was imperative that the Swedish committee for the ersatz Nobel evade the very thing that outsiders suspected all along was definitely a major consideration. As Lindbeck continued, “Has the selection committee viewed the award as a chance to influence the direction of new research in economics? The answer is definitely no.” — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 478

Categorization

  • XREF: Echoes the chapter’s broader argument in Nine Lives about how the Nobel served as a legitimating device for the neoliberal turn — fits with the reader’s project of fracturing monocausal narratives of neoliberalism. — connects to: The economics profession erased its own history, enabling false innocence about the ersatz Nobel. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 502; Neoliberals themselves devised ideological scorekeeping of Nobel economics winners — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 510; Hayek opposed the economics Nobel Prize as an excessive grant of individual authority. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 523 (+8 more)
  • QUESTION: Worth pursuing: which specific prizes most clearly show the steering effect — and how did the committee reconcile ‘neglected ideology’ with the actual record of picks?

Broader Connections

✉️

Backlinks