Dotan Leschem's dotty philology

Four years ago I devoted a couple of posts to Dotan Leschem's dotty economics.

I will now look at the foundational philological claim of his book 
The Origins of Neoliberalism: Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucault

The Three-Dimensional Human
Since its inception in Greek antiquity, the West imagined human life as evolving in a three-dimensional space: the economic, the political, and the philosophical, distinguished by boundaries set by law.

No. The three spheres were economic/scientific, political/cultural and moral/religious. Philosophy claimed to make a contribution to all three spheres.  But, it was more frequently mocked than venerated, though, no doubt, it lay at the core of a prestigious type of paideia.

Underlying the happy and self-sufficient Greek polis

which never existed. 

was the economy.

No. It was military efficacy. 

Preconditioning philosophical life, unbound by this mortal coil, and glorified, if only momentarily, by the light of the eternal, was the economy, embedded in existential necessity.

In other words people needed to work in order to eat. But without military efficacy they would be enslaved and might get a lot less to eat. 

Unlike most authors who view the history of thought from the perspective of either the political or the philosophical dimension, this book attempts to retell the history of the three-dimensional human being from the less-traveled dimension of the economy. In particular, it reinserts into this history the most glorious and at the same time most ignored chapter of the human trinity of economy, politics, and philosophy in the Christianity of Late Antiquity. For it was in the era between the Councils of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (451) that the one-dimensional zoon oikonomikon came to reign supreme in the human trinity.

This is nonsense. The Christians, with good reason, thought life nasty brutish and short. The best thing to do was get martyred or spend your life praying so as to have a blessed eternity in Paradise. Economics doesn't much matter if, at any moment, you could be killed or enslaved or simply perish in an epidemic or a famine. 

Philological History of Oikonomia
The history of the economy conducted in the book is different from the usual economic histories.

because it is utterly mad.

It is a philological history that traces the meanings attached to the notion of oikonomia since its original use as management and dispensation (nemein) of the oikos in Archaic Greek until today.

The materials for such a history are not available. Still, for specific traditions, we can make some educated guesses.

Although not excluding concepts that traveled through Latin, such as prudence and law, it is essentially a history of the “West that speaks Greek,”

which did not exist over the greater part of Europe. By contrast there were Greek colonies and Kings in Afghanistan and Pakistan and even parts of present day India. That's why we know 'artha' is one translation of 'oikonomia'. But 'artha' means 'meaning'. In other words, the word itself means 'hermeneutics'. Indeed, Price theory is a Value theory is a Meaning theory or type of hermeneutics. Thus philology is facing its own hermeneutics when it tries to grapple with this. The result, as is obvious from Leschem's lucubrations, is that nothing but stupid, ignorant, lies are uttered. 

focusing on the transposition of its key concepts oikonomia, poli-tikeh, philosophia,and nomos.

But philology is not a robust tool in this enterprise. Why? A small change in the information set- e.g. the discovery of a papyrus manuscript or rock inscription- can completely change the philological reception. As knowledge of context changes, our reconstructed semantics deforms radically. 

It tells a nominalist history, that is, it begins by asking which successive semantic values have been attributed to the word oikonomia by different authors and discourses instead of asking how specific terms are used to describe a content that is supposedly known.

What is the difference between a word's 'semantic value' and 'pragmatic value'- i.e. how the word is used? I suppose the answer is the 'spirit' in which the term is used. Dotty Leschem may want to show that some guy who lived a long time ago used a word in some very stupid sense peculiar to Leschem's own brand of idiocy. Thus he shares the same spirit as that venerable dead guy.

I recall reading the word 'computer' in Shakespeare. I might, to glorify my own humble profession, want to pretend that the Bard of Avon was a humble coder or other such 'intellectual coolie'. But why should I stop there? Why not say Sheikh Peer was the son of a kasai from Bradford on the A1 motorway? I met him at the LSE. His Globe Theater was next door to my office in Moorgate. 

Such a philological inquiry deconstructs the “retrospective” method generally used in economic history, histories of ideas or science that project the contemporary meaning attached to key concepts back into history.

Nonsense! Philology has to uncover historical evidence re. semantics and pragmatics. Superior analytical tools enable them to do so in a convincing manner. Alternatively, they could go work for the History Channel and show that Sheikh Peer was a time travelling LISP programmer of Mirpuri descent.

Deconstruction only claims to expose metaphysical preconceptions. It doesn't pretend that it can actually change the past. 

In the case of the economy, these retrospective histories commonly count for either 1. a history of the economy as a distinct sphere of existence whose meaning is unaltered throughout history, usually understood as encompassing the relations of production, consumption, and distribution

That may be true of older models. But Financial 'Econophysics' has burgeoned and 'Chrematistics' is now on the menu. 

2. history of “economy” as a rational disposition, based on the assumption that agents of history act “economically” and that the definition of the economic mode of conduct and of the agent remain unaltered throughout history.

But our ideas of rationality have greatly changed. Regret-minimization not Utility Maximization is the way go under Knightian Uncertainty. 

This sense gained currency in economics and history departments over the last half-century with the rise of “new economic history”

 But Econ itself moved forward as an ergodic science. Most American Econ PhDs know nothing and care less about Econ History. The thing is reserved for cretins. Amazon will pay you good money for your Math skills.

3. Finally, history of “economic thought,” which occupies itself with reading texts by past writers about “the economy.” The last presupposes (based on state-of-the-art economic theories) what the field and objects of “economics” are in themselves and then looks to the past only to identify cases of partial recognition, or misrecognition, of this sphere and its objects.

Sure. But you go in for this shite once you are past your prime and can no longer keep up with the math.

Economics does not matter very much. You can get rich or make your country rich without bothering with its academic refinements. This has always been the case. Dotty Leschem thinks otherwise. Apparently the word 'oikonomia' has a unique magic.

Although word choices, whether innocent, contingent, or deliberate,can have little to no influence on the nature of what it names, this is not the case with oikonomia.

Coz this nutter says so. 

As the latter history unfolds in the book, it becomes evident that, upon migrating from the institution of the ancient oikos to the Christian ecclesia and later to the liberal market

No migration occurred. The oikos, or household, existed side by side with the ecclesia- or political assembly of citizens- as well as with markets of various types, some of which stretched across vast geographical expanses. South Indians drank Greek Wine before they met any actual 'Yavanas'. 

, the economization of these institutions was framed within the limits of an invariant question because of its seemingly different previous meaning and not in spite of it.

Nonsense! Firstly, economists did not take over Politics or the Church. There was no 'economization' though no doubt business-like transactions did occur at the margin. There was no 'invariant question' and it had no limits. People who started off propitiating a particular supernatural power for a limited reason ended up praying to God to get an eternity in Paradise superior to that enjoyed by the Olympian Gods.

Reinserting the relegated Christian chapter into the history of the economy provides the essential hermeneutical key for the explication of its core invariant meaning, one that is simultaneously open to broad variations and compelling. A comparative account of the economy of the oikos, ecclesia and market based on such a philological history suggests a typology of four criteria according to which a model of human action is called an economy:

A model concerned with choice under scarcity is an economic model. But Politics is about public goods which are non rival and non excludable. Thus, locally, there is no scarcity. Religion has no scarcity even globally. Heaven is not 'congestible'. There's plenty of space for everyone. 

1. it involve the acquisition of a theoretical and practical disposition of prudence

No. Economics can study Ants in exactly the same way it studies Australians. That is why Game theoretic models came to dominate.

2. which faces the human condition of excess that transcends human rationality;

 God alone knows what this means. You won't find it in any Econ textbook- even one by the devout Quaker, Ken Boulding.

3. this rational engagement with excess generates surplus; finally,

Nonsense! Surplus is defined as Total Benefit received less Total Cost of the transaction. There is 'rational engagement' with 'scarcity', not 'excess'. By contrast, if I hearken to a proselytizer and feel I am saved there is no Cost and infinite Benefit. But, equally, if I say 'hey! you lost weight' to my neighbor and he replies 'Wow! Your hair looks great. I almost didn't recognize you!' then we both receive quite a large benefit at trifling cost.

4. this action takes place in a distinct “economic” sphere alongside other spheres such as the political and the philosophical.

But Dotty's sphere is not 'economic' at all. It is as stupid as shit. Nobody will save money or improve their business model or help their country make smarter choices by reading his Eurocentric rubbish. 

This fourfold typology of economy also establishes the Christian moment as the missing link,

Though some Christian countries are as poor as shit while Japan surged ahead. 

which, nevertheless, functions as the turning point in the use history of the economy between the ancient oikos where excess was despised,

by whom? Some guy who lived in a tub? The ancients liked gold and silver and shiny shiny things. A man who discharged his liturgical duties in a sumptuous manner was accorded great honor. 

the economic sphere kept to minimum, and the neoliberal marketized economy where excess is desired, the economy infinitely growing.

So there you have it. Dotty is saying 'Boo to Neo-liberalism. It is very evil. Funding for my shite Department has been cut due to that evil ideology. Why can't young people just learn to subsist on a hunk of stale bread while they pay through the nose for instruction in my brand of imbecility? If things continue like this, cretins won't be able to get PhDs and to call themselves Professors! True oikonomia means giving shitheads like me money so we can talk worthless bollocks. I have proved this philologically by telling stupid, ignorant, lies.'

If Dotty were Indian, his idiocy would be endearing. He would get a Magsaysay award. But the guy is Israeli. Them peeps be smart. Perhaps the whole thing is an elaborate prank. The trouble is, stupid Indians might be taken in. We generate enough imbecility on our own. We don't need to import it from Israel or America.