Analytical egalitarianism is the doctrine that abstracts from any natural differences between people, seeing them as having similar needs and interests and being sufficiently equal in power that in normal circumstances no one is able to dominate the others (p. 1). Taken as a group, the nineteen essays in this volume are best seen as using this doctrine to argue the case for a liberalism that stands alongside the liberalism of the classical economists from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill against the neoclassical economists and their contemporaries. One strand in this argument carries over directly from the editors’ The Vanity of the Philosopher (Peart and Levy Reference Peart and Levy2005): the belief of the classical economists that all men should be treated as equal, in contrast to the eugenicist and racist arguments that were prevalent among the neoclassical economists. The other strand is that the “expert” is not inherently different from anyone else.

After an introduction in which Peart and Levy outline their agenda, Part I opens with a verbal debate between James Buchanan and Warren Samuels over their views of markets and power. This appears to have been transcribed very literally and I found myself frustrated by continually stumbling over the many hesitations and repetitions that disrupted the flow: reading is a different activity from listening. There follow chapters in which Peart and Levy argue that the classical economists viewed politics as a form of exchange, and in which Samuel Hollander finds “unexpected parallels” between on the one hand Marx and Engels, and on the other libertarians such as Hayek and Mises. Andrew Farrant then views the socialist calculation debate through the lens of worst-case theorizing. Part II, “Smithian Themes,” opens with Deirdre McCloskey’s argument that economics should be placed within the sphere of the sacred and Leonidas Montes explores the history of “Das Adam Smith Problem.” A discussion opened by Warren Samuels on the invisible hand leads into chapters on Smith’s view of usury (Maria Pia Paganelli) and arguing that Smith was more concerned with the working poor rather than aggregate happiness (Eric Schliesser).

Part III, “The Role of the Expert,” covers the role of the expert in attitudes towards race (Peart and Levy), Frank Knight and socialist planning (Farrant), Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (M. Ali Khan), and an account of how Chile came, in the nineteenth century, to hire the French economist, Courcelle-Seneuil (Juan Pablo Couyoumdjian). In Part IV Tyler Cowen asks whether a novel is a model, Peart and Levy and Thomas Leonard explore the history of eugenics in economics, and Gordon Tullock discusses self-sacrificing behavior in relation to evolution. The volume then closes with an exchange of letters, with an introduction by the editors, between Buchanan and John Rawls, recruiting Rawls to the cause of analytical egalitarianism.

The position that all people should be valued equally is what gives the notion of analytical egalitarianism its appeal. Coupled with modern science’s demonstration that biological differences between races are essentially non-existent, this fundamental moral principle is very powerful. Yet Peart and Levy’s arguments go well beyond this, using analytical egalitarianism in ways that, when examined closely, are problematic. My first reading of the book was on a flight, so I naturally began to think about pilots: they clearly have expertise that is acquired by training, but they clearly have certain abilities that are above those found in the population as a whole. (This would apply even more strongly for fighter pilots.) A good society is one in which anyone could become a pilot, but only if they have the relevant abilities, a proposition that Peart and Levy would surely endorse. Yet I cannot see how it is compatible with their analytical egalitarianism which involves starting from the assumption that such differences do not exist. Arguments that certain groups (whether defined by gender, race, or sexual orientation) are unsuited to be pilots are wrong, not because they violate the principle analytical egalitarianism but because they are based on fallacious assumptions about the abilities of different groups. Use of the term analytical egalitarianism conflates two types of argument that should be kept separate.

It is also noticeable that Peart and Levy do not see more need to question the assumption that the world is one where no one is able to dominate others. In his conversation with James Buchanan, Warren Samuels draws attention to the problem of unequal distribution of power, yet elsewhere the implications of this are overlooked. There is much discussion of “worst case” theorizing, to avoid reliance on people being unselfish, yet there is no exploration of the question of whether a society in which everyone was motivated by pure self-interest would be as desirable as Peart, Levy and many contributors believe. Even if it could operate, might such a society not exhibit a concentration of economic and political power that would have horrified Adam Smith?

Up to this point, I have discussed the volume in relation to its editors’ agenda, treating it as an argument for a particular political position. It is likely that some contributors do not share this position. However, if that is the case it is not clear (with the exception of Warren Samuels). The reader who is led by the title to expect a debate over the merits of the concept of analytical egalitarianism will be disappointed, for one side is missing. There is no rigorous questioning of the concept or any debate over whether worst-case theorizing might be systematically misleading. There is no “sympathetic reading” of neoclassical economics to counterbalance that provided of the classical economics: they are tarred with the brushes of eugenics and support for socialist planning.

The papers arise from workshops organized under the title “The Summer Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economics,” the raison d’être of which is explained in the book’s opening sentences.

Clearly, the workshop saw some serious analysis of classic economic texts, and contains chapters that repay reading. Among the previously unpublished chapters I would pick out the Buchanan-Samuels exchange (very interesting, even if the editors exaggerate its importance), Schliesser’s observation that considerations of equity underlie Smith’s notion of the real price of commodities, and Couyoumdjian’s discussion of Chile’s hiring of Courcelle-Seneuil.

However, though parts of the book may have historical value, its agenda appears to be less historical than philosophical or ideological. The above quotation comes close to equating economics with the classical liberal tradition. It seems likely that for many (though not all) of the contributors, that is not a problem. However, it is not clear that this is the best way to defend the history of economic thought to a wider audience of economists or historians. If the typical modern economist is someone for whom theory is synonymous with formal modeling and for whom applied work means econometrics, it seems unlikely that work such as this will make much of an impression. On the contrary, it could harm the field through fostering the prejudice that the history of economics is a vehicle for ideological messages (something often found in heterodox writing, from the left as well as the right of the political spectrum): the classical liberal tradition is a tradition in political philosophy that is not found in mainstream economics syllabi. To preserve the field, it is surely more important to persuade economists and historians that the history of economic thought meets high standards when considered as history.