Larry Moss: One of the Good Guys in Economics

When Widdy Ho, widow of Larry Moss, invited me to contribute a short piece to this volume in remembrance of Larry Moss, I was honored, and immediately accepted. Larry was one of the good guys, and it's always sad when a good guy is taken out before his time by that big guy in the sky. I suspect that I will get into hot water with the p.c. crowd for saying "good guys"--I recognize that I should have put "guys and gals"--no, that wouldn't do either. I should have put "one of the good people." But to phrase it that way would have destroyed the flow and cadence of the sentence. I suspect that had Larry been the editor of this volume, he would have let "one of the good guys" slip through. What do I mean by "good guy"? I don't mean those sets of economists who agree with me on policy or on theory. I suspect Larry and I disagreed on many policy and theoretical issues. But concordance of views of theory or policy has nothing to do with my definition of a good guy. Instead, a good guy has to do with attitude. Good guys recognize that social interaction is an intricate game, and they watch themselves as they play the social interaction game. A good guy brings a certain attitude toward scholarship--one that is constantly questioning and trying to find points of agreement as well as points of disagreement. A good guy is constantly willing to question conventional wisdom, and to point out when that conventional wisdom seems less wisdom and more rhetorically encrusted hash. A good guy is willing to treat the pillars of establishment as a dog treats a fire hydrant. Larry fit this characterization of good guy well. He would say what he thought, and let the pieces fall where they may. Consider his comment on the general profession: "It does not bode well for the present stream of Nobel awards that much of what is novel and new is just old wine in new bottles. It is particularly sad that the majority of the profession does not know this, and it is also deeply disturbing that it does not care to find out" (Moss 2005: 217). Being a good guy involves more than being willing to attack conventional wisdom. A good guy must also have the ability to treat himself as a fire hydrant as well. A good guy recognizes that she is not imparting a truth to others, but rather is imparting a particular perception of truth. She will recognize that truth (as best we can reach it) is not held by one person, but is a collectively developed truth. Truth is not found; it emerges from the competitive interchange of ideas. For a good guy, the purpose of attacking conventional wisdom is not to convey an unconventional truth to others, but to get others to stop and think so that they can have a better chance at arriving at the truth. This second characteristic of what it means to be a "good guy" reduces the set of good guys enormously, and is where I believe many self-described heterodox economists fall short. These self-described heterodox economists will micturate on the pillars of the mainstream establishment but they will not micturate on the pillars of their own particular beliefs. This tendency creates protected areas--incubator bubbles--for the various particular brands of heterodoxy. For a time within these bubbles, heterodox ideas can develop and even thrive. To some degree, especially when an idea is initially being developed, being protected in a bubble serves a useful purpose. But at some point, if that idea is to spread, it must leave the bubble and live or die in the mainstream world. Because the conditions for idea survival are much more difficult outside the bubble, most will die once they are transplanted. That's the life (and death) of an idea. But a few will take root, grow, and become the mainstream. In my view, all too often self-described heterodox groups overprotect their ideas. They stay for too long within their bubble, writing for and conversing with primarily others in the bubble. When that happens, the heterodox groups become the establishment within the bubble--the ones that need to be seen as fire hydrants. …