On 2/17/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Now, obviously this is bullshit but I wonder when neoclassicism became so > entrenched.<
after WWII, the 1950s, with the extent of entrenchment increasing over time. > Was this the way that economics was taught in the 1930s and 40s? < no. Back then, a lot of departments, if not most of them, were institutionalist. That is, many were free-market types, but were empirical in orientation rather than starting with NC metaphysics. >Were Marxists fired in the 1950s.< at UC-Berkeley, several were, because they refused to sign the loyalty oath (some of these ended up at the U of Utah). I don't know much about other places. I know that the number of tenured Marxists got very low, with Paul Baran being the only one at a big-name school (Stanford) at one point. He was given a very hard time. > Also, is it a function of the administration dictating a curriculum that is > neoclassical in nature?< I doubt it, beyond such things as the loyalty oath. The administration typically doesn't know much about economics. (This includes Larry Summers....) However, there's big pressure from the business community (including business schools) for economics departments to be pro-biz, to serve biz (and not for dinner). Sometimes this ends up being anti-NC, because NC economists such as the late Gerard Debreu are totally irrelevant to biz concerns. > I had a leftist economics professor at Bard in 1961, although it was not > obvious by any stretch of the imagination, but he had to teach intro to > economics using the Samuelson book.< many departments impose a textbook on their professors, so that the more established ones impose an ideology. When I started full-time, I _had_ to use the Gwartney & Stroup texbook, which is much, much, more right-wing than Samuelson. That's one reason I'm no longer at Occidental College... > How can you really present a critique of Adam Smith et al when the textbook > enshrines that approach?< AS was much, much better than the NC economists. He can be used against them. Among other things, the W of N has an entire chapter on why high wages are a good thing. Telling the students "what AS really said" can be an eye-opener. Even without his Theory of Moral Sentiments. >Do pen-l'ers ever teach classes with an openly Marxist or radical approach?< it's been a long time. I get the feeling the students aren't interested and I have a hard time teaching when they aren't interested. Many profs have said that a major ideological constraint on them is the students. -- Jim Devine / Bust Big Brother Bush! "There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." -- Alfred North Whitehead
