Geoffrey M Hodgson

Published 25 March 2021

The ‘Me Too’ movement has rightly raised the issue of sexual harassment, and of how influential and powerful people have got away with such transgressions. Having shone a light on this serious problem, Me Too has been influential in bringing some of the perpetrators to justice. Consequently, it is no longer so easy to ignore sexual harassment or to diminish the pain or suffering it has caused.

But there is an issue of justice as well. Before verdicts are rushed, and reputations are crushed, we should carefully weigh the evidence. A pertinent case here is that of Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) the influential economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974.

Devaki Jain published her highly praised memoirs in 2020. Born in 1933 in India, she studied in Bangalore and Oxford. She became a leading feminist economist and a campaigner for social justice. Her memoirs relate how she was selected in 1958 as a research assistant by ‘an eminent Swedish economist … in Oxford … to work on his magnum opus, a three-volume work on development.’ Although she did not mention him by name, there is little doubt that she was referring to Myrdal, who was then working in Oxford on his three-volume Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations.

Jain related an incident where the Swedish professor offered her a lift back home after a dinner with his research team. While driving, he is alleged to have ‘dug the fingers of his left hand into my crotch’. She protested, and she had to threaten to open the door of the speeding car to get him to stop.

The next day she was fired from her post in front of her co-workers, the professor saying that she was ‘inadequate for the job’. The account she gives is appalling and disturbing.

It is also believable. Tragically, many men could get away with such inexcusable behaviour in 1958. On the one hand, some progress has been made in providing such victims with legal protection. Public attitudes have partly shifted from ‘boys will be boys’ to more understanding of the damage caused, and injustice wrought by such attacks. On the other hand, much more progress is needed to change attitudes, prevent these attacks occurring and bringing their perpetrators to justice.

But this progress is not helped when care is suspended over the allegations and action is taken without respecting the rights of the alleged perpetrator, as well as of the victim. Jain gave a credible account of an assault but took care not to name her attacker. She also made clear that previously she ‘had no indication’ that the Swedish professor ‘was a predator.’ There is no evidence given of other transgressions of this nature by the accused.

But, throwing care to the wind, one serious allegation becomes proof of multiple offences. Aware of Jain’s accusations, on 22 March 2021 the Council of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE) announced publicly that it would no longer be awarding an annual Myrdal Prize for the best submitted book in its area of research. The statement went on: ‘We have also become aware of inappropriate behaviors by Mr. [sic] Myrdal towards women’.

Without any apparent concern about due process and the rights of the accused, Myrdal is now elevated from alleged responsibility for one serious offence to a multiple offender ‘towards women’. There have been cases were similar accusations, made by other women against other men, have turned out to be false. Jain’s believable accusations of sexual molestation cannot be corroborated, as Myrdal is dead and there are no other witnesses. But some partial confirmation of her story might be possible concerning her abrupt dismissal in front of others the following day.

Did the EAEPE Council make any efforts to corroborate this part of the story? Did they unearth evidence that Myrdal had been accused of offences toward other women?

We cannot progress toward a fairer and more equal society, where people are protected from unwanted sexual molestation, without simultaneously having a concern for justice – including due process and the rights of the accused. Once the norms of justice are eroded then we are in a world where accusations are sufficient to condemn and convict. We are in the realms of the witch trial or the kangaroo court.

Consider another example. The economist Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) is reputed to be a womaniser. Twice he lost his job, in Chicago in 1906 and Stanford in 1909, on the basis of such accusations. But no document or worthwhile testimony suggests that he was unfaithful to his wife at the time, until several years after he had asked her for a divorce in 1896. She refused until 1912. Veblen’s academic downturn was provoked by sexual scandal, but it was tragic and unjustified. It is ironic that Veblen – over a century ago – was convicted on allegations of sexual misconducted, while the racism and sexism of some of his contemporary colleagues went unnoticed.

EAEPE’s Myrdal Prize has become the Joan Robinson Prize. Robinson was a very important economist who made some major contributions to the discipline. But she supported political regimes whose standards of justice were far from ideal. These included Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China and Kim Il-sung’s North Korea. These regimes were responsible for tens of millions of deaths, including of many who were executed without trial.

Robinson visited Mao’s China several times and was a supporter of his Cultural Revolution. In her short book on the topic in 1969, she regretted its violent excesses but applauded Mao’s ‘moderate and humane’ intentions. It did not occur to her that the uncontrolled movement that Mao had unleashed against his own party would lead inevitably to many thousands of cases of murder, rape and torture, and the absence of the rule of law.

There are cases where Mao incited violence and forced young women into his bed. Of course, this does not mean that Robinson approved of these crimes. But she was gullible enough to believe in the words of Chinese officials who denied them.

All that said, the allegations against Myrdal put EAEPE in a very difficult position. But they did not have to suggest that Myrdal was a serial offender. It is vital to uphold high standards of justice in such matters.

25 March 2021