Dear Colleagues, Regarding the discussion about heterodox and heterodox departments, I have two comments.
1. The term heterodox in heterodox economics is an umbrella term to cover Post Keynesian, Marxist, Institutionalist, radical, social, feminist, and Georgist (and others) economics and economists. No other collective term exists that can do this; and I should note that this is all the term means. The Association for Heterodox Economics (www.hetecon.com) is a current working example of "heterodox" in action. While many economists grumble about the word, I find that those most set against it object to community implication of heterodox. To be a heterodox economist means that you are part of a community of heterodox economists, whether they be Post Keynesian, Marxist, etc. And while there are differencies in terms of theory and policy among heterodox economists, they are minor compared to what they have in common. 2. The issue of prestigous economics departments and heterodox economists, I would add to Professor Henwood's comment that it has been the policy of most all of the prestige departments to not hire heterodox economists; and it has been the policy of all orthodox economists to exclude heterodox economists from academia. Thus the real question is not why there are no heterodox economic departments at prestigous universities; rather the question is, given the explicit repression of heterodox economists for the last 100 years, why do heterodox economists still exist. It is our current existence that really needs to be accounted for. Finally, as for those prestigous departments all of which have engaged in intellectual cleansing, I do not consider them prestigous at all and certainly do not think that the economists in those departments are any better than the heterodox economists I associate with and/or in my department at UMKC. Fred Lee
