I was talking to some English PhD students today, and when the conversation turned to economics they were dismayed to learn that no one in “top” economics departments ever read Marx, much less understood any of his theories. Then I was caught off-guard when I was asked, “so what thinkers do most students in economics programs read?” The student just assumed that we must read someone. But as far as I can tell, and the answer I gave, was “none.” The training of economists in the “top” programs does not entail any reading of books.
This should not be news to anyone familiar with the current state of mainstream economics, which has become a branch of mathematics. But the English PhD students’ surprised reactions to that reality reminded me of how incredibly bizarre this current situation is. Neoclassical economists are trying to completely divorce economic theory from all ethics, philosophy, literary theory, history, social theory, political theory, etc. But of course that is impossible, and even economists are using certainly philosophical and ethical assumptions, and their theories are historically and socially contingent. For example, we do use some form of utilitarianism, although anyone who actually bothers to read any Jeremy Bentham knows that he would be appalled at the distortion of the ideas attributed to him today.
What is scary to me is that these students of economics, who are trained not to read about anything but mathematics, are the ones who go in to government, business, policy research, and have the authority to shape policies and influence debates. No wonder our economy is in such a mess. I think requiring students of economics to read some books during their training would go a long way. Certainly, they used to. But now, the pressure to take more courses in mathematics, modeling, and statistics has relegated reading to an optional hobby for those students in graduate economics programs and finally earned the discipline the title of “dismal science.”
Update: See the thoughtful response by Maxine Udall.
A philosopher should lead the dismal scientists (Letter to the Financial Times from Prof Chin-Tai Kim and Prof Yeomin Yoon)
See also Joseph Stiglitz, Needed: a new economic paradigm
Also check out Landreth and Colander, History of Economic Thought
Mike Konczal nailed it a few months ago:
My very first economics class ever was auditing a graduate macroeconomics class where we went through the Lucas/Stokey “Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics” and Ljungqvist and Sargent “Recursive Macroeconomic Theory.” I still remember asking my classmates “no seriously, this isn’t what macroeconomics is, is it?” It was like they were training to be electrical engineers, but could do no actual engineering. I still am terrified of what macro graduate students are cooking.
And speaking as someone who has taken graduate coursework in “continental philosophy”, and been walked through the big hits of structural anthropology, Hegelian marxism and Freudian feminism, that graduate macroeconomics class was by far the most ideologically indoctrinating class I’ve ever seen. By a mile. There was like two weeks where the class just copied equations that said, if you speak math, “unemployment insurance makes people weak and slothful” over and over again.
— http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/blogging-and-the-economics-profession/
Maths certainly have limits to economics science. The limits end where policy begins. In academia students are trained as such, targeting a “subjective” way of conducting research. But they forgot that successful policy, require wise people. Kant once had said, “intelligence is the organization of science. Wisdom is the organization of life”. What is missing from economics science is definitely the second. History, sociology, philosophy are unequivocally sources of great knowledge to exercise. After all, let all be remind on how economics begun to exist and by whom.
I also have a very strong impression that this widespread uneducated technocrats of economics, is what cause them to translate the world with numbers, equations and cost and benefit analysis. Depriving out of any instincts that – first and foremost- economics was, is and should remain a social science. This point here, is also relevant to universities where they categorize their economics courses as business studies. The utterly sacrifice of the spirit of economics. The treatment of the perspective for economics, definitely much change.
Finally, i also have the feeling that a major source of the disagreement between economists, is this. Some they have never read anything beyond academic papers and math textbooks.
“Economics is a very easy task, where few can excel”, is one of the most famous quotes of Keynes. However very few bothered to ask why.
But, i have also to admit that competition and the current system that academia in economics work, impede with draw backs young people to school themselves with further knowledge. At present to become a successful in economics, makes you a very specific type of nerd, unfortunately with no flexibility for gaining useful knowledge.
Young mainstream economists are taught to be ignorant and disdainful, it seems to me, towards any literature more than a decade or two old, including papers in the “top” journals. William Baumol, Michio Morishima, and Paul Samuelson all published on Marx. I think mainstream economists nowadays would not take that as a model to emulate.
Do you think mainstream economists, if asked, would “refute” Marx by pointing out that the USSR is no more or that being more lazy when working doesn’t raise the price of a good? I think that this teaching of mainstream economists into ignorance leads to many of their opinions, including on policy, to be kneejerk and less informed than I could get at any local bar.
I never have seen a site more focused on Marx than this one. What’s the story?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
After the decade of the 1940’s economic study and discipline (aka. political economy) were split apart into poiltical science and economics and the rise of business administration arose out of economists having little interest in the the firm (business) that entailed marketing, accounting etc. and we now witness the silos each of the three intellectual endeavours inhabit.
Not to mention all the business leaders who are never required to take a class in ethics…
As a math guy, I feel insulted by calling USA mainstream economics a branch of math. It is less scientific than astrology or alchemy and attracts the terminally stupid, who then become tenured professors at top ranked universities. What mainstream economics deserves is a vicious attack as the pseudoscience it is from other branches of academia. Soon enough, no one will teach and learn it, and it will be consigned to mouldering books and journals in libraries, and forgotten uncited papers in databases.
Wow, what a blistering attack by Calgacus. But, of course, he (she?) is correct — mostly. In what other science can the most “respected” speakers ignore plain fact, and still retain respect?
.
In what other science are so many people so wrong about so much, while the results of their beliefs cause so much harm?
.
Yes, mainstream economics is broken — more than broken — it is a fraud. Calagus is right to be insulted, because so much of the math in economics is twisted to justify obsolete hypotheses.
.
The very foundation of our economy rests on monetary sovereignty, yet not one so-called economist in a thousand even knows what that term signifies. Visualize a physicist not knowing what “atom” means.
.
Thus today, mainstream economics has devolved into some strange mixture of Freud, Marx, psycho-babble, historical nonsense, perverted data and unsupported opinion. The result: One recession every 5 years. We’re lucky it hasn’t been worse.
.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
@calgacus, congratulations you just made a criticism nearly 150 years old. said criticism lead to the creation of neoclassical economics where general equilibrium models were imported from science. so much for that solution. the problem is not that economics is not enough like other branchs, the problem is it doesn’t encourage dissent. dissent and creativity is the key to the vibrancy of any field. economics can have a new wave of scientists coming over to try to each economists how to do their job but that won’t accomplish much. what is needed is the promotion of heterodox thinking. in fact all of academia could use more of that.
Is true that economics have failed to numerous things. Mainly because of the inherent constraints, faced by mathematical modeling, human behavior and political willingness.
But, is also ineptitude to think that economics did not improve anything or has not assisted in producing more wealth and prosperity.
Till the organization of society stops to trade and exchange with a monetary unit or any medium of exchange, Economics will have scope to play.
Economics, are almost perfectly work on micro scale but nobody acknowledge that. The difficult part and where the difficulty lies, is on the macro scale or on more aggregate grouping.
I challenge all of you who blindly attack economics, to put you on the position of a finance minister or a president and then see you on how you are going to behave and whom you’re going to advice. Assuming that indeed want to know what the policy implication could be for every decision making you want to take.
I also wonder, how you are going to argue when you want to increase country’s wealth. And what type of arguments are you gonna use? Are you gonna use the imaginary numbers, dear Calgacus ??
We don’t have a volunteer society to check in advance how a policy could evaluate. And neither do have something more than relying on data. And if nobody can consider this greatest difficulty inherent on the subject of economics, then he is simply careless, afraid of, and much of too introvert mentality to deal with something that by its nature is humanly impossible to be perfect, however hard it might tries and whatever results it might achieve.
And wanted or not everything is ruled by economic relationship and everything is influencing those economic relationships. And on the real world, yes, economics is the science of everything for the science of everything. What the eyes can see, … is all economics !!!
In the modern societies, Health, education, justice, research and development … everything needs the economics and should be the priority of economics to be still available to everybody for everybody and for everybody’s well being.
those disrespectful folks that cannot see all these are just using populist language that is full of complains, nagging and insults …… with no proposals or suggestions !!! (As expected )
Is like i dishonor, medicine because still cannot fight, not just major illnesses, but viruses or headaches. Is like i blame physicists for not transfer us to another universe yet and replying to other astrological or physical phenomena. Is like questioning chemists for why not found better medicines or better materials, etc etc etc …..
True or not ??
And i want to make something clear to everybody. Serious Economists do agree with economics, they do not agree on policies. But apparently, economists do not have such privilege for something very natural to humans.
msh855: Serious Economists do agree with economics, they do not agree on policies.
Economists disagree over theoretical economics as well as over its application to policy.
msh855,
“those disrespectful folks that cannot see all these are just using populist language that is full of complains, nagging and insults …… with no proposals or suggestions !!!”.
.
No problem msh855. Here are two proposals:
1. Eliminate the FICA tax
2. Increase federal deficit spending.
.
The proposals are there, and each is backed with plenty of data. The problem is, the mainstream economists are so mentally rigid, they don’t even read proposals, much less analyze them.
.
Economics is not like the medicine you mention; it is closer to witch doctor medicine — not merely a failure to cure, but actively applying the wrong treatment.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
I think Nathan has it right when he says economics doesn’t encourage dissent. I will say that there is a well-spirited back-and-forth within the mainstream blogosphere, but heterodox folks are mere gadflies.
As for msh’s critique of these arguments, you certainly can blame economics as a discipline when it willfully ignores very active dissent that could improve its effectivness.
@Roger Mitchel and the rest
When i was talking about proposals and suggestion, obviously i was not talking about the current debate over stimulus or retrenchment ….but rather on how to improve some inherent limits to economics.
And especially try to suggest on how to predict human behavior ? Human’s feeling ? Human’s self interests ?
How to produce something more objective without the maths or data? how to use the limited resources ?
Still waiting the answers though …
We cannot carry out experiments, does anybody understand it? And we will never have the opportunity to conduct any kind of experiment in order to confirm a model or a theory. When some of you will understand this difficulty and appreciate what already have be done so far?
Those are the limits that make economics to fail on certain issues.
My earlier comment, apparently, was not a parallelism between economics and medicine, but rather how populism can be used to make easy or convenient criticism. Moreover, here is another problem mate, what the right treatment is for you, for others might not. And both might have ground reasons to believe that yours or mine is wrong. Wisdom or foresight is something that can only be proved “a posteriori” as Latins say.
@Nick Krafft
Can you mention some of those very active dissent that economics do not take into consideration ??
Dissent is almost in every science or even in our daily life. Is normal and natural. Here we are talking about inherent barriers to economic effectiveness in practice. And those are, mathematical modeling cannot capture in full the real world, human behavior cannot be predicted in general, and political willingness -in most of the cases- do not match with what could stand as the right policy to implement.
Where is the extraordinary to what i say ??
And still i wait some answers on what i also asked. Economics did not improve anything in this world ?? Nothing at all ??
Ah, I see. You don’t want to know how to improve the science of economics. You want suggestions about how to predict “Human’s feeling ? Human’s self interests ?
How to produce something more objective without the maths or data? how to use the limited resources ?”
I remember, years ago, a wildly popular book titled “Games People Play,” by Eric Berne, that describes mind games. One of the “games” involved “Person I” stating a problem and asking for an answer. Person II would offer an answer, whereupon Person I would say, “No, that’s not what I meant,” then state the problem a different way.
This kept repeating, and repeating. It was a method used by Person I to demonstrate superiority. It’s an annoying game.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
msh855, what do you mean by “economics?” I am have trouble following you.
This was a good, thought provoking post with much truth.
My own two cents at
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/08/we-are-what-we-read.html
Don’t bother explaining the labor theory of value to me. I do understand it. My point was, does an English PhD student? My own experience is that non-economists (English PhDs included) don’t really know a whole lot more about Marx than economists (unless they are Marx scholars, historians of economic thought, or very old economists). But that’s just my experience. 🙂
@Rodger
The real improvement to my science will be when someone, answers what i asked. I have ready millions of books, why and when someone wants to avoid answering questions.
Because mate, i have repeatably mentioned how modern economics work. We are enforced to use data and maths. Both have certain abilities and specific way of using them. Cannot capture the real world in full and cannot depict the whole population in detail. Then, policy is very different story, dude.
If you watch basketball, you might see that P. Jackson making the system work for Kobe, but if kobe misses all the shots is something that Jackson cannot predict (PS: prediction and actual outcome is far from different from expectation). And this where the human factor involved. And you are telling about mind games ??
I mentioned more than twice about the inherent constraints of economics.
In the next round of elections vote for the candidate that proposes higher taxes !!! And those who got it fine, those who not is better to reconsider some issues on what i might mean.
@Tom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics
And here is another video of a very good discussion on why economics fail.
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/06/physics_envy_ca.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+InfectiousGreed+%28Paul+Kedrosky%27s+Infectious+Greed%29
@ msh855
Have you read any PK or Modern Monetary Theory,
Godley and Lavoie, Monetary Economics
Mitchell and Muysken, Full Employment Abandoned
L. Randall Wray, Understanding Modern Money
Hyman Minsky, Stabilizing an Unstable Economy,
for example?
BTW, here is a good summary of Modern Monetary Theory posted by Prof. Scott Fulwiller at Naked Capitalism
Guest Post: Modern Monetary Theory — A Primer on the Operational Realities of the Monetary System
This is relevant to this thread about “reading” because MMT traces its historical roots to a variety of thinkers, including but not limited to Marx, Knapp, Keynes, and Kalecki. It contains a thoroughgoing critique of contemporary orthodox macro, whether New Classical or New Keynesian. The basis of this critique is that neither of these schools understand how the modern monetary system actually operates on a functional basis.
Thanks for posting the Fulwiller article- good stuff.
msh855,
Perhaps because English may not be your native language, I don’t think anyone, including me, understands what you are asking. So try this. In one simple sentence, ask one question. I’ll see if I can answer it.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Apologies for the late post. On the off chance that anyone’s still reading the comments…
Mr Mitchell, you say “Economics is not like the medicine you mention; it is closer to witch doctor medicine — not merely a failure to cure, but actively applying the wrong treatment.”
This is the essential point about mainstream economists for me. But even MMT proponents assume that the mainstreamers are arguing their views in good faith. I don’t believe this is true.
I believe the neoliberals do know that “the very foundation of our economy rests on monetary sovereignty.” But part of their project is to discredit MMT’s proponents when necessary, but mostly to just ignore them.
They can mislead the average voter/American who doesn’t understand anything about economics. What they purport seems to make a kind of sense (equating household budgets with federal govt budgets, for instance.)
But it really just serves to validate their ideas in the minds of voters, so they can continue to implement the neoliberal agenda, i.e. impose austerity, (so that the rest of us pay for their mistakes,) cut social safety nets, attack Medicare spending, etc.
@ David
Evidence: this post and the following comment threads at Mosler’s.
http://moslereconomics.com/2009/06/10/laffer-wsj-opinion-piece/
http://moslereconomics.com/2009/06/10/laffer-wsj-opinion-piece/#comment-7066
http://moslereconomics.com/2009/06/10/laffer-wsj-opinion-piece/#comment-7121
David, I’ve thought about how it could be possible for otherwise intelligent people not to acknowledge the absolute facts of MMT. After all, it is a fact that federal spending is not constrained by federal taxes or federal borrowing. This is not some hypothesis, but simply the way the government operates.
So I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. Since mainstream economists are not stupid, they must be arguing in bad faith. In short, they are lying. So the question becomes why.
I can think of two possible reasons:
1. Fear of admitting they have been wrong for the past 40 years and/or
2.Fear. Fear of criticism by their peers or, in the case of politicians, fear of the electorate.
I met one professor who told me he will not speak the truth for fear he will not get tenure. How widespread this fear is, I cannot say, but clearly something has prevented the academic community from admitting the emperor has no clothes.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
[…] made of this metaphor (what about Friday?); but for me, it reinforced a point made earlier that economists don’t generally read, and reminded me of a wonderful passage in an essay by Philip Mirowski that discusses exactly this […]