Words are important to convey ideas. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced that the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics will be awarded to Daron Acemogli, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. declared:
This year’s economic science winners have demonstrated the importance of social institutions to a nation’s prosperity.
The Nobel Foundation may be tainted by the look and feel of some of its new laureates. I reviewed Acemoglu’s two latest books. narrow hallway James Robinson and power and progress With Simon Johnson. Acemoglu’s naive, pre-public choice conception of the state has become more explicit. If this wasn’t evident in his earlier works, it certainly shows up in these two books, especially the last one. The words and expressions used sometimes betray Asemguru’s progressive policies. in my review power and progressI wrote:
In another book by Acemoglu and James Robinson, narrow hallwaythe state becomes more and more powerful, but in a way that seems magical, it is kept in check by an increasingly powerful “civil society.” …In several places in both books, the magical “society” mutates into “society,” only more scientific in look and feel.
As explained in the previous post (“The word “society”EconLog, September 7, 2021), the strange word “society” instead of “social” was invented, as far as we know, by Minor Hugo of the 19th century (probably the pen name of Luke James Hansard) It was done. century utopian British communist and follower of Charles Fourier. This language is currently used by fashionable intellectuals, who perhaps want to show that they know more about social issues than the common people and than the long tradition of economic analysis.
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“Society” issues discussed by popular intellectuals
