Prejudice and the History of Economics: A Minisymposium

The matter of prejudice has intruded upon the consciousness of historians of economics recently through a controversy surrounding the publication of Melvin W. Reder's article, "The Anti-Semitism of Some Eminent Economists," in the winter 2000 issue of HOPE. In that article, Reder took up the question of what he termed "ambivalent anti-Semitism" and whether it is a term that can be applied variously to Keynes, Schumpeter, and Hayek. Reder's argument was that all of these individuals had, in their writings, expressed attitudes that today would be characterized as anti-Semitic. Although in their personal dealings each of these individuals had apparent regard for particular Jewish colleagues, and of course for their Jewish friends, their utterances were characterized by what Reder called anti-Semitic stereotyping at least, and political anti-Semitic argumentation at worst.

It is with respect to Reder's discussion of Hayek that that "controversy" erupted, both publicly and privately. Publicly, a response by Ronald Hamowy appeared in the spring 2002 issue of HOPE titled "A Note on Hayek and Anti-Semitism"; the issue also saw Reder's "Reply to Hamowy's Note on Hayek and Anti-Semitism." Briefly, Hamowy argued strenuously that any attempt to characterize Hayek as anti-Semitic was preposterous:

Not only is there not a hint of anti-Semitism in [Hayek's] remarks, but they are a potent indication of Hayek's contempt for anti-Semitic sentiments.

Professor Reder's comments on Hayek are an insult both to Hayek and to those many Jews, like myself, who worked closely with and under him and should be dismissed as the somewhat jaundiced views of a writer intent on finding malevolence where none exists. (260)

Reder's reply to Hamowy raised new points concerning the expression of Hayek's attitude toward Jews in Vienna as well as the politics of immigration patterns to Britain that lent some credence, in Reder's view, to the fairness of his characterization of ambivalent anti-Semitism, a characterization I suggest that could well describe many of the past intellectual "giants" in economics.

In addition to Hamowy's responsible protestation, there was the eruption that occurred on the electronic mailing list Hayek-L. In February 2001, that electronic mailing list reacted to the Reder paper in HOPE. After several comments hostile to Reder, the list moderator, denying that there was any case at all that could be made concerning Hayek's prejudice, shut down the list discussion.

Believing that the emotional energy associated with these matters suggested that historians of economics should engage the subject more generally, I solicited proposals for papers to examine in any number of ways the general topic of prejudice and the history of economics. The resulting four articles that follow take up several complex issues. Tim Leonard queries the interrelation of Progressive economics in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the eugenics movement, while Brad Bateman reviews what we are learning about racism and those American Progressive economists. David Levy and Sandra Peart locate the concerns of Leonard and Bateman in some earlier English controversies, and William Coleman interrogates the connection between anti-Semitism and hostility to economics itself.

In all, these four papers serve as an introduction to an immensely complex set of problems, the addressing of which will require that historians of economics attend seriously to morally problematic issues in the cultural context of what are often considered purely economic ideas.