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Prof. Xi Tianyang: Thoughts on Thought Market

May 15-2024   



Misinterpretations of thoughts are a common feature of society, said Prof. Xi Tianyang, NSD Associate Professor, in his lecture on thought market at Academic Afternoon Tea on May 13. The serial event was launched by the NSD in autumn 2022 to promote cross-disciplinary exchanges among faculty members and students.

 

Speaking from the perspective of the history of economic thoughts, Prof. Xi looked into several issues confronting the academic thought market. In reviewing the origin of the term ‘thought market’, Prof. Xi said that it first appeared in a paper by R.H. Coase in 1974. Contrary to its moral-charged eulogies in Chinese-language contexts, Coase cast explicit doubt on freely competed thought market free from interventions. In fact, Coase underlined the externalities of thought market as a reason for strengthening government control on thought market. Currently, misinterpretations of Coase’s views on thought market abound, one of which compares thought market to freely competed goods market and argues for encouraging free competition among academic thoughts and against regulating them. Coase’s attitude, however, was much closer to pragmatic statism.

 

Prof. Xi continued with examples of J.M. Keynes and F. A. von Hayek to illustrate the ubiquity of misinterpretation of thoughts. He pointed out that many views in today’s Keynesianism cannot be attributed to the man, while his wide-ranging thoughts, such as entrepreneur expectation and animal spirits, were not absorbed by mainstream macro-economics after the Second World War. Similarly, what Hayek criticized in The Road to Serfdom was not the former Soviet Union, as was interpretation by the general public, but left-wing political forces in the UK. Prof. Xi said that the so-called ‘debate’ between Keynes and Hayek was a manufactured thought war; the fact was that Keynes and Hayek were on close terms privately and shared extensive views. Analysis of Google Corpus revealed that along with the rise of neo-liberal narratives at the end of the 20th century, the two men shot up in popularity.

 

Adam Smith suffered from even more serious misinterpretations, said Prof. Xi. In Google Corpus, his concept of ‘the invisible hand’ soared in frequency since 1960, whereas ‘the wealth of nations’ dropped steadily. That missed the key point of Adam Smith’s book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, said Prof. Xi. The tome dedicated half of its pages to exposition of government affairs and stressed wealth for both people and the nation in the definition of the goal of political economics. ‘The invisible hand’ only appeared once in the book and was aimed at mercantilism, mercantile groups, and politicians who gave prioritize treatment to merchants at the expense of small farming producers. Such misinterpretations, according to Prof. Xi, can be largely attributed to the Americanization of Adam Smith’s views by J. Stiglitz in the 1950s when he turned a blind eye to many discussions on government regulation and deliberately emphasized the concept of free market.

 

Based on these examples, Prof. Xi offered explanations for the seemingly inevitable slide towards misinterpretation of thoughts as goods. The main cause lies in the conflicting goals of thought suppliers (researchers, authors, politicians, opinion leaders, and so on): on one hand, they aspire to provide ideas that are as close to truth as possible; on the other, they hope to have as many people as possible accept their ideas. Such a conflict renders it difficult to define what thoughts are successful. Another reason is that patriarchy results in very limited contestability in thought market, which in turn leads to difficulty in achieving substantive innovation.

 

Sharing his reflections on thought market, Prof. Xi said that academic thought innovations should form challenges to incumbent views. To create an effective thought market, both the appropriateness of government regulation and thought supply of academe are important. Academic thoughts can derive momentum to drive supply side change from market-choice contestability and internal reforms of academic institutions. He also believed that researchers need to leave their comfort zones, throw down gauntlet to authoritative views and construct their own theories.

 

Prof. Xi Tianyang: Thoughts on Thought Market

May 15-2024   



Misinterpretations of thoughts are a common feature of society, said Prof. Xi Tianyang, NSD Associate Professor, in his lecture on thought market at Academic Afternoon Tea on May 13. The serial event was launched by the NSD in autumn 2022 to promote cross-disciplinary exchanges among faculty members and students.

 

Speaking from the perspective of the history of economic thoughts, Prof. Xi looked into several issues confronting the academic thought market. In reviewing the origin of the term ‘thought market’, Prof. Xi said that it first appeared in a paper by R.H. Coase in 1974. Contrary to its moral-charged eulogies in Chinese-language contexts, Coase cast explicit doubt on freely competed thought market free from interventions. In fact, Coase underlined the externalities of thought market as a reason for strengthening government control on thought market. Currently, misinterpretations of Coase’s views on thought market abound, one of which compares thought market to freely competed goods market and argues for encouraging free competition among academic thoughts and against regulating them. Coase’s attitude, however, was much closer to pragmatic statism.

 

Prof. Xi continued with examples of J.M. Keynes and F. A. von Hayek to illustrate the ubiquity of misinterpretation of thoughts. He pointed out that many views in today’s Keynesianism cannot be attributed to the man, while his wide-ranging thoughts, such as entrepreneur expectation and animal spirits, were not absorbed by mainstream macro-economics after the Second World War. Similarly, what Hayek criticized in The Road to Serfdom was not the former Soviet Union, as was interpretation by the general public, but left-wing political forces in the UK. Prof. Xi said that the so-called ‘debate’ between Keynes and Hayek was a manufactured thought war; the fact was that Keynes and Hayek were on close terms privately and shared extensive views. Analysis of Google Corpus revealed that along with the rise of neo-liberal narratives at the end of the 20th century, the two men shot up in popularity.

 

Adam Smith suffered from even more serious misinterpretations, said Prof. Xi. In Google Corpus, his concept of ‘the invisible hand’ soared in frequency since 1960, whereas ‘the wealth of nations’ dropped steadily. That missed the key point of Adam Smith’s book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, said Prof. Xi. The tome dedicated half of its pages to exposition of government affairs and stressed wealth for both people and the nation in the definition of the goal of political economics. ‘The invisible hand’ only appeared once in the book and was aimed at mercantilism, mercantile groups, and politicians who gave prioritize treatment to merchants at the expense of small farming producers. Such misinterpretations, according to Prof. Xi, can be largely attributed to the Americanization of Adam Smith’s views by J. Stiglitz in the 1950s when he turned a blind eye to many discussions on government regulation and deliberately emphasized the concept of free market.

 

Based on these examples, Prof. Xi offered explanations for the seemingly inevitable slide towards misinterpretation of thoughts as goods. The main cause lies in the conflicting goals of thought suppliers (researchers, authors, politicians, opinion leaders, and so on): on one hand, they aspire to provide ideas that are as close to truth as possible; on the other, they hope to have as many people as possible accept their ideas. Such a conflict renders it difficult to define what thoughts are successful. Another reason is that patriarchy results in very limited contestability in thought market, which in turn leads to difficulty in achieving substantive innovation.

 

Sharing his reflections on thought market, Prof. Xi said that academic thought innovations should form challenges to incumbent views. To create an effective thought market, both the appropriateness of government regulation and thought supply of academe are important. Academic thoughts can derive momentum to drive supply side change from market-choice contestability and internal reforms of academic institutions. He also believed that researchers need to leave their comfort zones, throw down gauntlet to authoritative views and construct their own theories.