Sam Bowles on going viral

A snip from one of Sam’s recent talks at the University of Chicago went viral, quickly amassing over half a million views on X. In it, he critiqued economists’ ban on making interpersonal comparisons of utility.

We caught up with Sam for a quick chat about the reaction.

“Who would have thought that my objection to the axiom that utility is an ordinal rather than a cardinal quantity would generate such a response? I objected to the axiom because it prohibits a common and persuasive argument for egalitarian wealth distribution, one initially made by the classical economist Jeremy Bentham.  

A theory that prohibits interpersonal comparisons of utility also rules out our making  ordinary statements of caring for others, like “I’ll pick up the kids today, it would be less trouble for me than for you.”.  I remember the first time I was taught this; I thought, well, it just seems like deliberately morally incapacitating us in some way. I always thought it was a scandal.”

Some of those commenting on X were surprised that this view was expressed at the University of Chicago. The irony was not lost on Sam.

In 1966, after joining the Harvard faculty he was fired for refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the Constitution of the U.S. (as well as to the Constitution of Massachusetts and the bylaws of Harvard). Within days, it was the arch conservative University of Chicago Department of Economics that offered him a job. He remembered this almost 60 years later, in his lectures this past December.

"I thanked the University for the offer. People were shocked at two things: first, that there was a law requiring a loyalty oath for teaching in Massachusetts and second, that somebody who got fired for refusing to sign it would get a job at Chicago."

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld Sam’s challenge to the law and he stayed at Harvard rather than moving to Chicago, to Milton Friedman’s disappointment, Friedman much later told Sam.

Useful links:

UChicago Stone Center | Why Economic Inequalities Endure with Sam Bowles.

UChicago Stone Center | The Origin and Future of Economic Inequality by Samuel Bowles.

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