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Thread. The @nytimes's #1619 project reopened some old wounds between economists and historians with respect to the #Historyofcapitalism subfield. What explains this tension between the disciplines and can we improve it for future collaboration? #econhist #slavery #capitalism
@nytimes Before continuing further, some qualifications...as I often do, when I thought to mention this, I figured I also needed to mention that and as a result, this thread would get way too long. I'm pressed for time with the start of the semester and developing an online class
@nytimes but I didn't want to give up and had to write something. So here goes.
@nytimes In an essay @Sven_Beckert wrote that most economic historians reside in economics departments. This wasn't always the case. Economic history as a specialization within history departments has declined since the 1970s. historians.org/publications-a… 
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert As economic / social / intellectual historians have declined, other subfields have supplanted them.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert So when the history of capitalism subfield burst onto the scene after the 2008 financial crisis, I was excited. I've always felt more historians need to understand the economy and I was especially excited since I've studied financial history, which surprisingly became sexy again
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert But the recent Twitter spats reveal there's a lot of animus between historians and economists. So what's that all about? It may be that since the mid-20th century, the disciplines have gone in very different directions. We no longer talk to each other (I know, a cliché).
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert A friend of mine in grad school who was getting his PhD in economics said that the difference between an economist and a historian is that an economist will spend an entire article proving with math what a historian writes in one sentence, and vice versa.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert Upon entering the job market, an economist will make $20-30k more per year than a historian or sociologist. I suspect part of this is because economists have more opportunities in the private sector
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert But the pay disparity also reflects the assumption that economists are practicing an objective science, presumably free from value judgments.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert This assumption may or may not be true, but the pay disparity *does* suggest that the form of knowledge held and practiced by economists is more valuable than that of historians. So if there is resentment, I'd suggest this is one reason.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert Many undergraduate programs offer a bachelor of science in economics, but historians earn a B.A. Economists can win a Nobel Prize, but historians cannot.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert History is a book-dominated field. If the job market was in better shape, a lot more historians would get tenure with the publication of their first monograph. Economists, I am told, don't really write a dissertation but put together like 3 articles for their doctorates.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert Another key difference: during an economics conference, audience members will often interject loudly to interrupt your speech to contest your assumption. I'd find this very distracting since giving a conference speech can be hard enough already!
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert Another main reason for the disconnect between economists and historians comes down to politics. A good many economists are conservative, libertarian, or politically moderate. I remember the controversy over Reinhart and Rogoff and how a graduate student exposed errors.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus told me once that we should not assume the economics profession as a whole can be narrowed down to a Friedman/Chicago School POV, which is a fair point, BUT, I've noticed an inordinately high number of libertarians in the econ hist of the antebellum era
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus There is one scholar who is often cited by historians of capitalism. He is a libertarian. He believes that Lincoln was the worst president ever, does not accept the utility of any type of government intervention under any circumstances, and used to constantly rail about the FED
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus "debasing" the dollar, which can easily be disproven by checking the dollar index (DXY). This reflects a pre-1930s mindset that the value of the currency was more important than employment, price stability, or consumption.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus One *might* argue that this man's views on politics and Lincoln have little to no bearing on his scholarship, but I've never thought history is separate from one's politics and besides, having those views kind of disqualifies you from being part of a serious conversation
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus On Ed Baptist, which has drawn the large share of criticism from economists and economic historians...I can't contest Brad Hansen's points and I can see how it would be frustrating to come across a historian giving the impression that an interpretation was new while seeming
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus to ignore or downplay the work from scholars in the 1970s (Fogel / Engerman, Olmsted, Rhode, etc). I had some problems with Baptist's conclusions about the Bank War--on Henry Clay, the BUS loaning to the Adams campaign, and some other points.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus But I'm unwilling to dispense with Baptist altogether. Baptist is a tremendously gifted writer and I agree, broadly speaking, of placing slavery at the heart of early American history, not just relegating it to a textbook chapter.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus A major point of debate is that economists, considering counterfactuals, have stated that slavery could not have *caused* the IR since industrialization continued after abolition
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus As I mentioned in another tweet, perhaps we can say that slavery and cotton were major parts of the narrative of how the IR unfolded, but this is not the same as saying slavery was a necessary precondition for the IR.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus I want to hear more about Bonnie Martin's point in the JSH that the collaterization of slave mortgages, which dated back to the colonial period, lubricated the economy in the South and allowed it to proceed faster than it would have otherwise.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus But going back to the animus between economists and historians, my own personal view (and economists may hate to hear this but I'm trying to argue in good faith here, constructively), but I feel like a lot of economists could communicate their insights more clearly.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus Before anyone jumps all over me for saying this (I've seen some economists do this), I recognize that what constitutes good writing is deeply subjective and involves aesthetic tastes
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus But there have been numerous times when I've read an article by an economist and have been deeply frustrated. Why are there 15-20 subheadings in this article that interrupt the narrative flow when 5 in my view should be the max for an article?
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus Let me stipulate that there are a good many economists and economic historians who *DO* write clearly and don't burden the reader with too many statistics. Peter Temin and Peter Rousseau are among them. But why am I placing so much emphasis on clear writing?
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus Because in this fast-paced world in which we now find ourselves, it is so incredibly easy to get distracted. Millions of things compete for our precious little spare time. A reader should not have to read sentences 3-4 times to get the point.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus Somewhat relatedly, even @paulkrugman, @PikettyLeMonde and Joseph Stiglitz have pointed out that there are too many economists who are overly obsessed with complicated models and math, and I suspect this turns off many historians.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde Historians may want to know, for example, who benefits and gets harmed by inflation, but may not feel it is necessary to know the formal models that support this conclusion.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde One of the things I forgot to mention about the history of capitalism subfield is that it reminds me in many ways of what scholars said about the market revolution paradigm in the 1990s.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde Feller, Howe, Rothenberg, R. Wright, Richard John, and others challenged those emphasizing the moral economy (Henretta, Merrill, Clark, and early Wilentz and Watson), and esp. Charles Sellers's boldest claims
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde The MR paradigm ignored political institutions; it exaggerated class conflict and Americans' antipathy toward the market; it downplayed the ways in which Americans were optimistic about consumer goods, educational opportunities, and technology; it minimized slavery;
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde the MR also assumed econ development influenced religs revivals and party politics rather than vice versa. The larger point here is that there were MANY critiques of the MR and I'm not aware of anyone past say 1995-2000 who would say they adopted the MR as their central thesis.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde Feller's "The Market Revolution Ate My Homework" article, the Stokes and Conway edited volume, and the JER symposium were all helpful. @markcheathem @DanielGullotta
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta The criticisms of the HoC subfield remind me of the criticisms of the MR. And let's remember that Baptist does not exclusively speak for all historians of capitalism--@sethrockman amusingly pointed this out with the "but her emails" comment.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman On economists' critiques of historians...@pseudoerasmus made a point recently about the lack of a clearly defined theory or model used to frame the work of many historians. This seems like a valid point. But how to do this?
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman Am I right to suspect that the 1990s was sort of the peak of theorizing, cultural turn, post-modernism, post-structuralism, etc, but that the historical profession has turned away from emphasizing models since then?
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman Historians do like narrative. Even academic historians.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman Going forward, I do wish there would be a de-escalation of animus between economists and historians. Economists tend to do a lot more collaboration on articles but this is much less true among individualistic historians. So how can we improve this situation?
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman It may very well be that historians are just bad at math. Calculus was the only "B" I ever got in high school. So if economists want historians to understand regressions and statistics, it may be that the former need to walk the latter slowly through the process, in baby steps.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman I am told that @louishyman teaches a methods course at Cornell. Can we get more of these courses offered in graduate programs? (I realize that's a tall order since I have many reservations about the future of academia).
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman @louishyman That's about it. Thanks for listening. The End.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert @pseudoerasmus @paulkrugman @PikettyLeMonde @markcheathem @DanielGullotta @sethrockman @louishyman Addendum: Historians, in turn, may need to take the risk of asking very basic-level questions that are necessary for learning but which may make them look vulnerable. In other words, put aside the ego.
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert Rest of thread was supposed to be attached here but it seems to have gotten disconnected
@nytimes @Sven_Beckert or again, here's the full thread, which is supposed to be 47 tweets threadreaderapp.com/thread/1169370…
