adbusters wrote: > Mainstream control over economics was further consolidated during the > hysteria of McCarthyism in the 1950s. By the 1960s US universities had been > thoroughly cleansed of dissident economists.
True. This was reinforced by the shoving-aside of institutional economics by the rising mathematical school (led by SRPE-winner Paul Samuelson). BTW, there is sometimes irony in this story: a lot of left-leaning economics left UC Berkeley economics because of the loyalty oath being imposed there -- and went to the University of Utah. They were accepted, perhaps because a very conservative state like Utah may have seen McCarthyism as unnecessary (or perhaps someone found some similarity between socialism and early Mormonism). Even though this group of exiles seemed to be a bit sad when I visited there, there was an historical basis for the establishment of a left-leaning economics department at the U of U (led, for awhile, by E.K. Hunt). BTW, I think that both Lee and Colander are correct in their explanations for the continued domination of economics by the neoclassical school. adbusters continues: > But there are signs that suggest that the era of thought control in economics is coming to an end. Complex systems theory tells us that just when a system seems most entrenched and stable, accumulating tensions eventually lead to rapid change, reorganizing the system. < quantitative change becoming qualitative? >The tensions pulling at the mainstream discipline are growing. A number of the >recent Nobel prizes in economics have been awarded for research that is >beginning to pry open the mainstream model. Dissident economists are getting >organized, holding conferences, winning prizes, publishing journals and >attracting a new wave of students. Once again, mainstream courses are losing >credibility with students as the toy economic models they play with in class >grow more and more divorced from the alarming view outside the classroom >window. Professors in other faculties are challenging economists for >misunderstanding and misapplying knowledge borrowed from psychology, biology >and physics. A growing body of research into happiness, much of it by >economists, shows that following many of the policies promoted by mainstream >economists is a pretty good recipe for minimizing happiness in this corner of >the universe. A cadre of rebellious young economists, with their >freshly-minted PhDs in hand, are unwilling to spend the next three decades of >their lives within the approved confines of the neoclassical economics >playpen.< this mostly seems to be a matter of behavioral (a.k.a. experimental) economics. It's a good thing, but it must be stressed that behavioral economics almost never gets beyond the individualistic approach of neoclassical economics. >Noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith once observed that ideas are eventually >undermined by "the massive onslaught of circumstances with which they cannot >contend." The system of thought control in economics is no longer able to >delay humanity's awakening to the onslaught of news showing that we are >breaching our planet's limits. And with limits acknowledged, we will be able >to abandon the misguided pursuit of growth that demands no-holds barred >exploitation of people and the planet. We can draw on ideas long pushed to the >margins to build a better world – a world with less strife, more laughter and >more modest footprints. < However, I don't expect economics to change fundamentally until shaken by events that are occurring outside of the profession, e.g., serious ecological disasters and economic depressions. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
