I think that is a terrible manifesto. Is calling NC economists "old goats" really going to help anything?
Furthermore, none of their specific qualms have anyhting to do with NC economics. It may be true that many NC economists downplay environmental externalities, or give too much importance to GDP, but there is absolutely nothing inherent to NC economics which would make people do such things. Giving attention to externalities or not thinking the GDP (which is officially just a measure of the value of goods and services produced) is the be all end all of well being is in no way inconsistent with neoclassical economics. Isn't NC economics just more or less the belief that the price of a good is (tending towards?) the (ex ante) value to the buyer of the marginal unit? (or that it would in the absence of some information constraints, coordination failures etc...) Perhaps it would be justified to use that harsh rhetoric towards NC economics if the content of the manifesto accused economists of ignoring reswitching, administered prices, falling rate of profit, etc... I won't sign the manifesto, even though I dislike NC economics and hate what I'm taught in undergrad classes (A version of NC economics which fits all the most careless caricatures to a T) and think the professors are assholes (Macro professor passes out editiorials saying stuff like "environmentalist whackos" "liberals would have you believe" and advocates the Iraq war. He said that saying the war in Iraq was a good thing is not a normative statement because we "had" to go in there because Saddam was a threat to U.S.)
