> Date sent: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 11:15:16 -0800 (PST)
> Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> From: Blair Sandler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [PEN-L:6972] re: Krugman
> The first economics class I took as an undergraduate at Yale, where I
> eventually got a B.A. in economics, was intermediate macro, with yours
> truly [unless my mind is playing tricks on me, I'm sure it was Krugman].
> All semester I did fine on homeworks and the mid-term, and basically kept
> my mouth shut in class, as I was at that time *just* beginning to read
> lefty and Marxist material. On the last day of class, Krugman explicitly
> asked for our opinions about what we'd been learning. I had just read
> Seymour Melman, so I very respectfully pointed out that Krugman himself had
> noted several unresolved problems with the theory he'd taught us, and that
> Melman's work seemed to resolve those problems. I asked Krugman to comment.
> His response?
>
> "I'm not going to answer that question except to say that Melman's theory
> is stupid and wrong." [This is perhaps not an exact quote, but damn close.]
> Never mind whether Krugman was right or wrong about this; pedagogically his
> response is inappropriate and unacceptable. Of course he gave me no
> opportunity to respond, but immediately called on another student.
>
> A week or so later was the final exam, four questions of detailed macro
> analysis. I answered the first two questions perfectly (I got all possible
> 25 points on each), and then, tired of the exercise, rather than continuing
> on to deal with the third and fourth questions, spent the following hour
> explaining why I thought the whole theoretical framework of the first two
> answers was problematic. I figured that I had demonstrated my understanding
> of the theory by my answers to those first two questions. Uh-uh. Krugman
> gave me a 50 for the final, an F, and an F for the course.
>
> I went to talk with him about it afterwards, explaining why I thought I had
> sufficiently demonstrated my understanding of the course material and more,
> and when he wouldn't raise my grade, requested another opportunity to take
> a test. Nope. The only F I got at Yale. I wasn't an econ major at that
> point; I'm not quite sure why that didn't stop me from switching my major
> to economics later.
>
> Blair
>
>
>
>
> Blair Sandler
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Response:
For those who have not read it, perhaps take a look at Dave
Colander's "The Dissemination of Economic Ideas" which deals with--
tactfully--among other things: schcolar despots and feudal fascist
machinations in academia; the tyrranny of the neoclassical and
"mainstream" paradigms; the "permissible" parameters/content and foci
of academic research and discourse; the "acceptable" journals for
publication and the "acceptable" subjects/grant bodies for research;
the "acceptable" topics for research; the institutions and techniques
for control, indoctrination and manipulation of undergraduate and
graduate students in economics and other disciplines; the hidden and
not-so-hidden rituals, symbols, and dances of maximization and
optimation of career potential in the profession; etc.
Krugman's type is but an extreme version of what goes on sometimes
among the so-called "lefties" as well although generally the more
extreme and feudal fascist the machinations the more right-wing and
"mainstream" the practictioner is likely to be. It is not so much
that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely as it is
that the corrupt, the megalomaniacal, the control freaks seek the
power in the first place or as Plato once put it: "Those who seek
power are invariably the least fit to wield it."
Jim Craven
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