A campaign has started at Berkeley to attack neoclassical economics and its dominance in the discipline. The students’ manifesto begins,
We the undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics and the students that you
graduate, have perpetuated a gigantic fraud upon the world. You claim to work in a pure science of formula and law, but yours is a social science, with all the fragility and uncertainty that this entails. We accuse you of pretending to be what you are not.
Of course, this message could merely fall on deaf ears as it did at Notre Dame, but it need not. The goal of this campaign seems to spread the manifesto to other campuses and create diialogue about the local hegemonies. There’s also an excellent resources website associated with the campaign.
This is going to happen eventually. It happened in psychology in the Sixties when Skinner’s behaviorism dominated academic psychology and Abraham Maslow came along with humanistic psychology to dethrone it. This can be done.
I recommend that students and economist join nationally and internationally in a movement opposing behaviorism by seeking to replace it with a new paradigm.
Have you read this, for example?
http://scienceblogs.com/evolution/2010/10/economics_and_evolution_as_dif_11.php
Download the white paper from the link in this post.
I suspect economics is not a science that lends itself to “bottom-up” analyses. Generalizing micro-economics’ theories to agree with macro-economics reality, has been difficult. The formulas are impressive, but somehow the real world doesn’t seem to cooperate. Tom’s comparison with psychology is apt.
Not that the macro-economists are so realistic. Most of them do not understand the implications of monetary sovereignty, so they provide the unsupported opinions surrounding “unsustainable” federal debt and money creation.
In short, economics is in trouble. It is ruled by by a “good old boys” network, and until it begins dealing with reality, rather than faith, it will remain a religion, and the world will continue to struggle.
I suspect MMT comes closest to the truth, though I disagree with its opinions about the causes and cures for inflation.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Good points. I wonder if a new consensus might only cohere outside the discipline, though. Perhaps I’m insufficiently aware of the “long view” of paradigm change, but it seems that economics, with its journaled and tenured structure, is not structurally capable of change. I suppose this may have been true of psych at one point, but the difference might be that there are a lot of mainstream economists in positions of real power.
It makes me wonder how much politics acutally resides in economics.
Personally, I have given up to “believe” in policy. The question is rather what can I do on an elemental basis. So instead of complaining, convincing should be the option.
To get it straight. If all students know, that neoclassical economics isnt up to date anymore, then who cares about the teachers?
So just be patient and trust in the “market” forces ;D