Thanks for this, Marsh. It made me reflect on my own journey to learn economics. I started graduate school after quite a lot of work experience and several years of living abroad, including in LDCs. In one of the first courses we read Abba Learner’s chapter called Functional Finance. After trying to discover the flaws in the concepts we came to accept it. Then I wondered “why aren’t we doing this?” Comparing it with Samuelson’s Economics and trying to answer my own question I concluded that it would lead to full employment, income equality and a better life for most, and so must be rejected. Much later I learned that famous others had already figured that out. There was nothing in my course work to take me beyond that radicalizing conclusion. (Outside of economics I was already radicalized re, for example, Vietnam, where the start of the war was still officially a few years ahead.) Now, a lifetime later, I believe economics faculty are impregnably dug in and cannot think beyond the U-shaped cost curve and “set MC equal to MR.” Still nothing realistic in Principles textbooks. I’ve recently looked at Mankiw’s macro book. To think of students having to ingest such nonsense, and to think of the faculty choosing such a book, or accepting the direction to adopt such a book is terrible. Perhaps some disciplines are different.
Incidentally, your mention of Cornell reminded me that today is Doug Dowd’s birthday. Happy birthday Doug. Gene > On Dec 7, 2015, at 5:58 AM, Marshall Feldman <[email protected]> wrote: > > What gets me about the myth is the complete disregard for the 800-pound > gorillas in the room. > • How many universities have business schools but not even a single > course in running non-profits or workers' cooperatives, let alone how to do > good (centralized or decentralized) economic planning? > • How many have departments of government or "political science," with > a sanguine view of the state, but no courses, let alone departments of > anarchism, self-management, or syndicalism. > • How many universities are beholding to corporate interests for 50% or > more of their physical plant, as even a casual noting of the names of > university buildings readily attests. > • How many are more concerned about their multi-million dollar sports > business than academics? > • How many "land grant" colleges today ignore the enabling > legislation's intent that they provide a liberal education to working-class > students, with "liberal education" understood as education suitable for free > persons, and instead focus on what's "practical and applied" and leads to > jobs in the corporate economy, justifying this orientation by the Morrill > Act's requirement that participating states offer instruction in "agriculture > and mechanic arts," when Morrill himself said this was included just as a way > "to tempt" students to attend college at a time when less than 1% of the > population went to college and not a single profession required a college > degree? > • How many academic departments are under pressure to justify their > existence by increasing enrollment and therefore self-police by keeping > academic standards modest but students' perceptions of employment-relatedness > high? > The deeply corporate nature of U.S. "higher education" is also more subtle. > When I was an undergrad at Cornell, I took a required course called "Advanced > Engineering Economic Analysis," which covered things like deciding on > projects based on internal rates of return, etc. We read articles on capital > theory by Modigliani and others without even a whiff of the Cambridge Capital > controversies, which turned much of what we learned into nonsense. I had to > learn this subject matter on my own several years later. When I told the > professor teaching the course that I was thinking of studying urban planning > in graduate school and would therefore like to write my term paper about > applications of the subject matter in the public sector, he told me he knew > nothing about how this ostensibly neutral subject matter could be applied in > the public sector. Instead, he suggested I consult with a certain professor > in Civil Engineering, who gave me a reading list of about 40-50 books, by > Galbraith and others. Reading all of them would have been the equivalent of > taking 2-3 courses to fill the deficiencies in my corporate-oriented > education, and even then would not have covered Marx, Keynes, or any of the > major critiques of and alternatives to neoclassical economics. > Some years later, while a PhD student in UCLA's urban planning program, I > received a fellowship to spend several months in Chile attending a seminar on > inequality systems (it was spring of 1973). Emmanuel's "Unequal Exchange" was > one of the required texts, and I remember how I found its approach so > completely alien to the social science I had been studying and therefore more > difficult to grasp. At the time, my department at UCLA bragged about its > ranking as the #1 planning department in urban and regional economic > development, yet what it taught was strictly & solely neoclassical. Since the > department had a strong emphasis on the LDC's, it was more than odd that what > it taught was nothing like what many universities in Latin America, Africa, > and elsewhere taught about the subject. (To its credit, the faculty of the > department was open to change when a number of students returning from > overseas study, as well as esteemed guest speakers from outside the U.S., > gave critiques of what the department was teaching.) > It is interesting to note that even in the late 1960's & early 1970s, Cornell > had a reputation for being left-leaning (having graduates like Peter Yarrow & > Richard Farina will do that), as did the department at UCLA. Yet this visible > leftish tinge was just a patina over a deeper, almost subconscious, > right-leaning corporatism. > And haven't there been several studies of economics departments and their > ideological biases? I seem to recall one that asked economics faculty members > to rank economic journals, with the result that even completely fictitious > titles, like "Journal of Mathematical Economics," got higher rankings than > actually existing ones with leftish names, e.g. RRPE? > >> Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2015 11:13:01 -0500 >> From: Brian McKenna >> <[email protected]> >> >> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Fwd: The Myth of Leftist Academia | Opinion | >> teleSUR English >> To: Progressive Economics >> <[email protected]> >> >> Cc: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition >> >> <[email protected]> >> >> Message-ID: >> >> <camkkstpjnys+5bwr5ihidplhbyzdj97ujtjrgzymnh7abxs...@mail.gmail.com> >> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> They are also using "faculty misconduct" charges against tenured professors >> who profess too much. They can get around "academic freedom" nostrums by a >> documenting overly emotional talk, or charging the misbehaving faculty >> member with micro-aggressions that elicit outrage - from either students or >> FELLOW FACULTY. The university is now a PSYCHIC PRISON for real leftists. >> It has gotten much worse in the past 5 years. >> >> Brian >> >> On Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Louis Proyect >> <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> >>> >>> >>> >>> http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-Myth-of-Leftist-Academia-20151204-0006.html >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> pen-l mailing list >>> >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
