At 1:38 PM 7/13/96, Eugene P. Coyle wrote: >>Only very weak neoclassicals "define efficiency as what the market does >>and then miraculously deduce that the market is efficient." >> >>I have many students entering my classes these days who have been >>bombarded with the western -- and now eastern -- medibarage that >>markets always do the efficient thing who are capable of this kind >>of simple methodlogical error. But few trained neoclassical economists >>make a mistake quite this elementary. > >No, the mistake they made -- as did most of us on PEN_L, including myself, >was in learning neo-classical economics in the first place. We learned it, >along with them. And then we learned and embraced the critiques. But our >minds are still screwed up by what we learned. And we spend a lot of time >talking about what NC is and how to fix it and/or how to rebut it. > When you think of the EFFICIENCY of teaching a year or a semester >of neo-classical micro in order to give the students what "the Profession" >says they NEED and at the same time trying to show how empty it is, the >efficiency of PEN-L academics is certainly questionable. This is a good and interesting point, Gene, but I do not know whether or not I agree. Given that: * many college students are going to study NC theory in required (for many) intro micro and macro courses, and that * NC theory is the economics we all already know whether we know it or not (because we learn it from day one in our homes, schools, churches, public discussions, mainstream media, etc., is it not preferable that students learn: that NC theory has objectionable practical consequences, that it justifies poverty and economic inequality, that their own ideas are already to a large extent based on NC theory and that if they wish to solve certain social problems they must reject NC theory and adopt another way of thinking about economics, then that their unconscious acceptance of NC theory is consolidated, solidified and strengthened? Notice that this argument is not, "somebody is going to do it so it might as well be me." The way I teach teaches the NC model precisely as a means of showing students *concretely* the ways that NC theory justifies the wealth and power of the rich and powerful, so I am not just asserting that it is true. By the way, I learned Marxism first, and only then studied NC theory in college economics classes. In struggle, Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED] If the germ theory of communism is true then I would be the virus.
