This issue of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter features...

This issue of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter features a series of Calls for Papers related to the ASSA-meetings that usually take place in early January somewhere in the US. Although the institutional details are somewhat more intricate, in short one could say that the ASSA-meetings are the regular conference of the AEA with some sessions hosted by heterodox associations (as those listed below) as well as other, partially less mainstream, associations, like the National Economic Association. In my view, taking part in an ASSA conference is a good educational experience, especially for younger scholars. However, it can be a somewhat ambivalent social experience as the mass of mainstream economists there seems even more uniformous than usual given their shared appearance: there are mostly white male people and although there is no official dress-code, the idea of signaling is somewhat pervasive as everybody seems to wear the same suit. A tourist I once met at an ASSA-conference summarized it neatly, when stating that “there are just too many dudes in suits here, to enjoy a holiday”.

And, of course, there is some mutual reinforcement of opinions and a quite strong ‘in-group’ feeling. As a consequence, I recommend avoiding any jokes about queues in capitalism vs. communism, when people line up during the breaks for really (I mean it, really) long queues at Starbucks to grab a coffee – in the past I have received some really hostile reactions on those ;-)

Another event that caught my eye when preparing this issue of the Newsletter is less ambivalent: one of the best online encyclopedias in academia – the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – now features a really informative and well-written article on Rosa Luxemburg authored by the great Lea Ypi. In my humble view, this is a great addition to the Encyclopedia and also a great resource for heterodox economics to use in either teaching or to catch up on Rosa Luxemburg’s works and insights, which has merit as her writings are often exceptionally clear and sometimes prescient, as this nice quote (which I grabbed from Lea’s article) illustrates:

“So long as capitalist states exist, i.e., so long as imperialistic world policies determine and regulate the inner and outer life of a nation, there can be no ‘national self-determination’ either in war or in peace” (see here for the original source)

Now how could we explain that stuff like this has merits to our mainstream friends at the ASSA-meeting? In my experience, what works best is to argue that a Luxemburg anticipated Dani Rodrik’s argument on the globalization trilemma by close to 100 years as such a take resonates well with the prevailing ‘in-group’ mentality. At the very same time this experience also illustrates the sad state of economic discourse in general, where ideas are not judged that much by their intrinsic merits, but, rather, by the prestige of their intellectual originators…

Nonetheless, all the best,

Jakob