New Economic Perspectives

By William K. Black

This is the fifth and final installment of my series of articles on Gary Becker, the recipient of the Swedish Central Bank’s Prize in Economics in 1992.  The prior articles dealt with Becker’s work that the central bankers cited in their award decision.  This article examines whether Becker, in the context of the worst financial crisis in 70 years, re-examined his views that led to his failed work on the family, women, discrimination, and crime or his colleagues’ anti-regulatory views at U. Chicago that proved so criminogenic.

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By William K. Black

This is the fourth installment of my series of articles about the absurdity of the Swedish Central Bank’s selection of Gary Becker for its Prize in 1992 on the basis of his embarrassing imperialistic forays into other disciplines.  One of the forays the Swedish Central Bank cited was Becker’s work on crime.  Becker was a terrible criminologist, just as he embarrassed himself in his related work on families, “human capital,” and discrimination.  He may have done the most damage in the field of criminology because he, and his disciples, influenced harmful policy changes.  As I have explained in earlier articles in this series, parents were far smarter than Swedish Central Bankers.  American parents ignored his advice that it was “optimal” not to educate girls.  Conservative politicians involved in setting our policies about crime, sadly, loved Becker’s ideas.

Becker confessed to a similar inability to understand basic concepts that normal human beings would understand in his Prize speech in 1992.

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By William K. Black

Theoclassical economists have strange views on a wide range of subjects including discrimination.  Becker was an economist at U. Chicago.  Richard Epstein, Becker’s colleague at U. Chicago’s law school, cites Becker’s book about discrimination as his key citation to the economics literature expressing doubt about the desirability of laws against discrimination.  Epstein’s book calls for the repeal of all laws and rules limiting discrimination.  Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992: 2 n. 2).  Epstein’s poisonous fruit of Becker’s twisted vines was published in the year the Swedish Central Bank awarded its Prize in economics to Becker.  The Swedish Central Bank Prize cited Becker’s work on discrimination as one of the keys leading to his selection for the award.

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By William K. Black

This is the second article in my five-part series on Gary Becker as an exemplar of the book we are writing about why economics is the only field in which one can receive the top award for proving wrong, anti-social, and intellectually dishonest.  In keeping with that triple failure the Swedish Central Bank prize in economics is frequently awarded in the year in which the recipients’ failures and intellectual dishonesty has become so obvious that only the most dogmatic of theoclassical central bankers could pretend not to recognize reality.  Becker’s award exemplifies this unintentional exercise in self-parody.

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By William K. Black

George Stigler celebrated Gary Becker as theoclassical economics’ schwerpunkt that led their blitzkrieg assault on other social sciences.  Stigler proudly called economics the “Imperial” discipline.  The idea that imperialism was a desirable trait is a typical example of Stigler’s blindness to history and human suffering.  Stigler famously proclaimed that economics alone was actually a social “science” because only it had a theory of human motivation (maximizing self-interest).  The Sveriges Riksbank Prize announcement in 1992 cited Becker’s imperialistic forays into the family, human “capital,” discrimination, and crime as the basis of their award.

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