Race, Liberalism, and Economics

Preface

Preface Economics is about policy, and policy by nature is transdisciplinary. This book attempts to look, in a broader manner than is usually done, at economic ideas as they relate to race and to policies that deal with racial inequalities. It was inspired (or maybe the better word is provoked) by David Levy's work on the history of economics and its relationship to racism. David's work was, as it usually is, provocative and interesting, but it seemed to us that there was more at stake than was initially evident from his articles and from those he published with coauthor Sandy Peart. Specifically, it seemed that David had a broader agenda of revitalizing the Chicago approach to race. A conference was designed to explore that broader goal and to consider the issue of race in a broader perspective than is usually done. This book is the end product of that conference. The conference was made possible by the generosity of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, which has funded David Colander's chair at Middlebury College. It was one of an ongoing set of conferences that have been run at Middlebury College on economic issues. These conferences have always tried to bring out, rather than hide, controversy, and this one was no different; we chose a set of very bright participants from a variety of different fields, including philosophy, English, and anthropology as well as economics, and we let them at each other. The diversity of approaches of the conferees was not only from outside economics; there was also a significant diversity of views among the economists who attended. While this volume is derived from the papers presented at the conference , it diverges from the conference in a number of ways. We used the conference as raw material and then, after the conference, organized the themes that came up in discussion into what we think will be an interesting and provocative volume. This places enormous burdens on the participants , whom we asked to expand on issues that were raised at the conference and that we believe are important for understanding the subject x PREFACE matter. Through this process of direction and editing, we created a set of essays that fit together more like a symphony than like the collection of individual sounds that often make up conference volumes. Even the papers that were presented at the conference were substantially revised to better connect with the evolving theme of the volume. Because of its transdisciplinary nature, this book should be of interest not only to economists but also to a larger audience interested in the implications of economics for policies dealing with race, including political scientists, feminists, public policy specialists, philosophers, historians, and sociologists, as well as interested laypeople. Some papers in it may make them mad, but all are, we believe, intellectually challenging and interesting. We placed enormous demands on the participants, and they responded superbly. We would like to thank each of them enormously; the quality of the papers is top-notch, and we appreciate all the work they did. Besides the participants, many people helped with the conference and helped make this book possible. Marie Winner and Amy Holbrook worked hard with the organization of the conference and did a great job. The students in Dave Colander's class on the history of economic thought read the conference papers, discussed them, and played an important role in the initial editing process. Once we turned to editing the book, our editor at the University of Michigan Press, Ellen McCarthy, was extremely helpful in providing timely reviews and in encouraging us to proceed. Marie Winner, Laurel Houghton, and Helen Reiff also helped with the editing process; Helen also did the index. We thank them all, but most of all we thank the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, which made the conference and this book possible. ...