Escape from Democracy

David M. Levy is Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Washington DC. He has worked with Sandra J. Peart at the University of Richmond for fifteen years, and both have co-directed the Summer Institute for the History of Economics and have been honored by the History of Economics Society. Sandra J. Peart is Dean and Professor in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. She is a former president of the History of Economics Society and the president of the International Adam Smith Society.

'You might think that an age of anticipated global warming is the wrong time to question the popular habit of deference to experts. David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart argue otherwise in Escape from Democracy, contending that democratic discussion, not hierarchical domination, is the mode appropriate to the public sphere. They trace the eclipse of the democratic tradition in university economics. They illustrate the dangers of runaway authority with two disturbing cases: the eugenics movement, and comparative economics during the Cold War. This is a wise and high-spirited book by two of economics' foremost public intellectuals.' David Warsh, Proprietor of the weekly commentary Economic Principals

• Acknowledgments; Part I. Introductory Themes: 1. Introduction; Part II. The Discussion Tradition: 2. On 'strongly fortified minds': self-restraint and cooperation in the discussion tradition; 3. The Knightian moment; 4. The rise of new welfare economics: an end to endogenous goals?; Part III. When Linear Models Fail: Two Cases: 5. Experts and eugenics: 'science' privileges a social goal; 6. Expert judgment and Soviet growth; Part IV. An End to Discussion: Secrecy and the Temptation to Bias: 7. Experts and the philosopher's stone: John Law's secret financial alchemy; 8. The consequence of suppressing discussion: imprudence with biased experts; Part V. Getting the Best out of Experts: 9. A revised code of ethics for experts; 10. Mitigating the consequences of factional expertise; 11. Inducing greater transparency; Part VI. Conclusion: 12. Vox populi?