60 years ago an undergraduate at an "Ivy League" US university didn't like the economics and politics that were being taught there. He didn't boycott classes. Instead he wrote a book about it.
The full title of William F. Buckley's book is "God and Man at Yale: the Superstitions of 'Academic Feedom'". (I haven't read it, though I skimmed it 30 years ago.)
Buckley complained that the economics taught at Yale was too collectivist. Too much Keynes, and not enough Hayek and von Mises. He addressed his book in part to those who donated money to Yale. He wanted them to use their influence.
Sure, there are differences, but there's also an obvious parallel to the walkout by some students from Greg Mankiw's Intro Economics class at Harvard. But I Googled, and can't find anyone making that (to me) obvious connection. We need to make that connection. We need to ask ourselves whether our reactions to those two protests are consistent. Austin Bramwell (pdf) quotes some of the very extreme reactions to Buckley's critique. Was there anything that extreme said about the Harvard students?
Here's another recent example of students boycotting classes because they don't like what is being taught.
I also want to draw attention to that second bit of the book's title. William F. Buckley saw that underlying the question "what should we teach?" was the question "who decides what we should teach?".
I don't have any especially insightful answers to those questions that you probably haven't already heard. So I'm just going to give a few personal reflections.
I teach Intro Economics, and have done for many years. I use the Canadian edition of Greg Mankiw's book. (I was a co-author of the Canadian edition, but quit after the third edition for personal reasons.) I sometimes get questions or comments in class from students who, I guess, disagree profoundly with what I teach or the textbook says. Those questions usually make me happy, even though it's sometimes a challenge to come up with a good answer on the spot. "That's not how the world works" and "That's not what we should do" show that the student recognises that economics is supposed to be about the world and is supposed to be giving good advice. What depresses me is "Will this be on the exam?", because it suggests that nothing I say really matters at all. The critics, who think we are wrong, at least flatter our vanity by thinking that economics matters.
My sympathies, unsurprisingly, side with Greg Mankiw. I hope that sort of thing doesn't happen to me. If it does, I hope I would have the strength to deal with it as well as Greg Mankiw. It's hard enough teaching Intro Economics (few faculty volunteer) even without everybody on the internet joining in to criticise the politics of your course content. My immediate reaction might not be printable. Then I might start thinking about words like "Chilly Climate", "Hostile Environment", and "Silencing".
I haven't heard of any recent stories of conservative students walking out of classes taught by left-of-centre sociologists, but I hope my response would be consistent. Ultimately, I see this as a sort of social contract. "If you try to stop me teaching what I think is right, why the hell shouldn't I try to stop you teaching what you think is right?" Does this social contract extend to Nazis? Hmmm. Does this social contract extend to Marxists? Hmmm. Would they offer me the same deal? Hmmm.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Nick: “It’s hard enough teaching Intro Economics (few faculty volunteer) even without everybody on the internet joining in to criticise the politics of your course content.”
What I find so frustrating about this is that there are so many academics out doing nothing but producing “peacock feathers” – pieces of work that have no use other than demonstrating the intellectual superiority of the authors – and being completely disengaged from students, the wider community, etc etc.
Read this defence of Mankiw, written by one of his students Jeremy Patashnik, indeed one with liberal views http://hpronline.org/harvard/in-defense-of-ec-10/
Patashnik writes:
One would presume that, in this letter, students would lay out precisely what biases they find objectionable in Ec 10, but the closest they come to doing so is when they say, “There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory.”
Incidentally, the authors of this letter are in for a treat: there’s plenty of Keynesian theory to come in the second semester of Ec 10. In fact, Mankiw is a great Keynes admirer, and once wrote, “If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there’s little doubt that that economist would be John Maynard Keynes.” The only reason that these students have not yet studied the father of modern macroeconomics in Ec 10, of course, is that the first semester of the class is devoted to microeconomics.
Patashnik goes on
[Mankiw’s] His third lecture was a defense of a carbon tax and taxing negative externalities in general. I’m guessing liberals weren’t the ones objecting to this lecture.
The two guest lecturers were David Cutler, a former Obama health care adviser, and Ben Friedman, who gave a lecture on the religious origins of capitalism and the ties that religion and economics share today. The conservative bias, once again, fails to come through.
This is like the intellectual equivalent of a gourmet 12 course tasting menu, and these students were complaining????
I read Mankiw’s article from over the weekend, and I was amazed and the grace and class he demonstrated with respect to Paul Samuelson, who cantankerously criticized Mankiw in an interview a year or two ago.
I don’t agree with Mankiw’s brand of economics, but the world clearly needs more Mankiws.
Frances and Ryan: good comments. I agree. Greg Mankiw makes me feel totally inadequate about my course, and what my response would be.
But half of me wishes that Greg Mankiw were a totally different person, and had come out fighting the way a right-wing version of a Marxist would, making no apologies for teaching some crappy hard right Economics course, and telling his critics to get lost!
I think there might be some general rule here. They only pick on the moderates.
I don’t get what the students are complaining about, I used to love taking classes with professors I disagreed with, it made the course that much more intellectually stimulating. If you think they’re wrong, and can raise interesting questions and critiques, great, so much the better for all concerned. The best papers I ever wrote were the ones where I knew (or suspected) that the professor disagreed (or would disagree) with my thesis, because those were the ones where I had to take serious what I anticipated to be their critiques and comments, in order to address them. Universities are supposed to be about critical thinking, not reinforcing your preconceived notions.
It’s somewhat depressing that Harvard students, who are presented with an amazing intellectual opportunity at one of the worlds most exclusive universities, can’t come up with anything more intellectually productive than walking out (or writing letters which highlight the extent of their economic ignorance, although that probably explains why they can’t come up with anything more intellectually productive than walking out). So seriously depressing.
The reason why is that what Mankiw teaches becomes part of an intellectual ecosystem with real-world consequences that are harmful.
Here’s another perspective on it. Walkouts and political theatre are the order of the day: do you think that they’d have gotten any press by writing a letter?
MAybe the students don’t want to be exposed to Ruizismus
http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2011.12.04/1314.html?
Mandos: “The reason why is that what Mankiw teaches becomes part of an intellectual ecosystem with real-world consequences that are harmful.”
I agree absolutely with the first part of what you say: Mankiw’s 10 principles have become paradigmatic, the tenets of belief that define modern economics.
But left-learning faculty are well-represented at Harvard, from Amartya Sen to Richard Freeman to Larry Summers to David Cutler (I don’t know about Larry Katz or Claudia Goldin). Perhaps one of them is just yearning to grab Ec 10 from Mankiw. But I seriously doubt it. As Nick says, people tend to avoid large undergrad courses when possible. Mankiw is only able to occupy the place that he does in the intellectual ecosystem because of he has very little competition, either from other members of his department in particular or from members of the profession in general.
There is another reason why people who believe in markets i.e. people like Mankiw tend to be drawn to teaching first year undergrad. That’s where the simple “this is how markets work” stuff gets taught. Introducing market failure – adverse selection, moral hazard, market power, imperfect information, strategy – or institutions, culture, customs, traditions – gets very messy very quickly. So that stuff tends to get put in the higher level courses.
And left-leaning people tend to be the people who are interested in all of these market failures and complications (if they didn’t believe in market failures, they’d think markets worked perfectly, and hence would be more right leaning) – so they don’t end up teaching first year.
“The reason why is that what Mankiw teaches becomes part of an intellectual ecosystem with real-world consequences that are harmful.”
Even if one were concede that that’s true (and I don’t), wouldn’t the student’s critique of that “intellectual ecosystem” be that much more poignant and coherent if they actually understood it?
I mean, Karl Marx certainly understood and read the workds of Smith that these students object to – he wrote extensively critiquing them (one of my economic history professors used to to joke that “Marx was a great classical economist, a lousy communism, but a great economist” because Marx understood the economic theories (and practices) he was critiquing, indeed some of his better critiques of capitalist practice relied on those economic theories). If the father of communism can study Smith, it certainly isn’t too much to ask from a collection of Harvard undergrads.
I can’t think of a more anti-intellectual approach to ideas that you don’t like than “I don’t like it, and I won’t listen to it”.
Well, I have a deeper conceptual problem with starting from a “baseline” kind of assumption of The Market, and then essentially trying to catalogue exceptions (even if it is in some systematic way). I do think that it is going to create a systematic bias in the results you’re going to get, because as I said on another thread, it assumes the conclusion—that the starting position was valid. That the simple cases attract the right-wingers kind of sums up the problem itself, no?
That’s why the whole David Graeber argument re barter was so important. If that isn’t the way these systems started, then it calls into question the very logical foundations of an intellectual ecosystem founded on the notion of free exchange as the basis for human relations (and then accounts for exceptions as market “failures”). Yes, you can build these models. But it’s not at all clear that you should.
So I think that the students’ walk-out of Mankiw’s class was well-timed (to go with the Occupy movement) and well-placed.
For your consideration if you didn’t see it
http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/robin-wells-we-are-greg-mankiw%E2%80%A6-or-not
Mandos: what’s your reaction to Buckley? Or to a hypothetical walkout of conservative students from a left-leaning sociology course (let alone an Intro sociology course taught from the Marxist perspective)?
Interesting. I’m currently taking an introductory micro course based on Mankiw’s textbook and taught by a guy who’s day job is providing policy advice to Alberta’s (very) conservative government. It really hasn’t come across as right-wing propaganda to me. Maybe I’m missing something…I opted not to buy the textbook, so maybe there’s something in there that isn’t covered in the lecture.
My impression – also as a self-described liberal – has been a reasonably balanced look at the underlying principles of Econ as they’re currently understood. While there was certainly discussion about why some liberal friendly policies – minimum wages and rent controls for instance – might not work out too well in practice, there’s also been plenty of discussion about why government policy might want distort the marketp, and bridge the gap between a private equilibrium and a socially optimal one. Using taxes and subsidies. Not exactly a far right position.
Nick: I think that student reactions across the political spectrum are fair in these sorts of circumstances, proportional to that particular discourse’s influence on our social order. For instance, while I would strongly disagree, I wouldn’t have a “moral” objection to a right-wing walkout of, I don’t know, a sociology course on universal health care use provided by a known member of the NDP or something. I welcome that sort of discussion, actually, because I think people are complacent about it.
But it precludes any discussion of establishing the socially optimal relations in the first place. Redistributionism is at best centrist, because it’s the most vulnerable way to correct bad distributions.
I would think Mankiw would want to teach Ec101 to keep his book up to date.
I cannot judge the Harvard students’ walkout, but Nick’s question, who decides what we teach, put me in mind of one of my philosophy courses. The prof was one of the stars of the profession, and the course had an unusually large enrollment for an upper class course. Around 200 of us filled a lecture hall. Only two texts were assigned, both written by him.
To give some flavor of the class, on the first day he posed a question to the class. To each student who rose to present an answer, he replied, “No,” and called on another student. Finally at the end of the class he answered his question. His answer was both obvious and trivial, and received a chorus of hisses and boos.
He started each class with a brief talk about the assigned chapter, and then opened the floor for discussion. Only there was very little actual discussion. Typically a student would offer an opinion with a brief argument, and then the prof would come back with a retort that felt like a put down. Then he would call on another student who would talk about something else. I did not find all of this amusing, and apparently neither did a lot of other students, as attendance dwindled.
Then at midterm he did not start class with a talk about the chapter. Instead he noted the falling attendance and posed a question: “What am I doing wrong?” He listened to each student who spoke and simply thanked them. He began the next class by stating that there was no assigned reading for the rest of the term, and opened the floor for discussion. Instead of acting as Mr. Know-it-all who proved that he was smarter than his students, he genuinely facilitated inquiry. I found this transformation of his behavior to be quite remarkable, especially given his reputation as a megalomaniac.
“I welcome that sort of discussion”
What discussion? A walkout is the anti-thesis of a discussion, it’s what you do when discussion is impossible. Moreoer, it is rude (both to the professor whose class you’re walking out of, but more importantly to you fellow students who might, quite fairly, object to your disruption of their class), and it’s certainly anti-intellectual.
“It really hasn’t come across as right-wing propaganda to me.”
I suspect one’s view of what’s “right-wing” kind of depends on where you sit on the political spectrum. If you sit at the far left of the political spectrum, everything is “right-wing”.
Min: wow! ‘Course, that’s just philosophy 😉
Why, the sort of discussion we’re having, of course. The sort of discussion that makes Robin Wells write a blog post about some of the problems in the way that econ 101 is taught.
That sort of discussion. There really is no other kind even worth having. That those students had both the organization and timing, sense of drama, and so on to do what they did, and make a splash doing it, and get us talking about it, suggests that there may yet be some hope for a Harvard education. Doubly so, because this wasn’t some small fry TA or adjunct/sessional they were doing it to, but Gregory Mankiw.
…or I suppose you think that the role of a student is to put his/her head down, and regurgitate the answers on the exam. Or maybe, being generous, write a Sternly Worded Letter to the editor or something. Or, being even more generous, writing a Phd thesis after 11-14 years of school (ugrad, MA maybe, PhD), which will promptly be e-shelved in ProQuest, and e-ignored by the planet…
Mandos, you said:
“That’s why the whole David Graeber argument re barter was so important. If that isn’t the way these systems started, then it calls into question the very logical foundations of an intellectual ecosystem founded on the notion of free exchange as the basis for human relations (and then accounts for exceptions as market “failures”).”
David Graeber’s point is irrelevant. The world in which we live is a monetary exchange economy with private property, contract law and freedom of exchange. And learning about the underlying forces that drive prices and quantities exchanged in this world is a very useful thing – even if you happen to think that society should be organized very differently.
In the economy in which we live, demand curves slope downward. Maybe you wish that they didn’t but they do – and there’s plenty of evidence to support this. The question of “the way these systems started” is an interesting one. But the answer to it will not change the fact that if you put a price ceiling on a good that is below the market price you will get a shortage of that good.
To me, the walkout nicely encapsulates the laziness, arrogance and intolerance of most university campus activists. Isn’t it telling that none of the students was able to point to any specific disagreement with the material in the course? Nobody said “Professor Mankiw, I think you’re wrong -rent controls won’t lead to a shortage of rent-controlled apartments. And here is the evidence to support my position.” No, to do that would actually require some work – and some humility.
We also live in a world with regulations, electorates, cultures, politicians, vested interests, malicious people, etc, etc, etc, most of which are massively underweighted in a conception of the universe that contains only “a monetary exchange economy with private property, contract law, and freedom of exchange [Oxford comma!!!1!!!1],” which of course we don’t actually live in, considering the numerous exceptions to private property, freedom of exchange, and so on. This is what is what I mean assuming the conclusion.
And engaging on a political operative’s (Gregory Mankiw’s) own political turf.
Gregor,
Exactly! When the criticism of Mankiw’s teaching is that he discusses Smith rather than Keynes in the micro portion of the course, that isn’t likely to provoke a radical rethink of how people teach introduction to economics.
Sure, they got publicity, but publicity comes and goes, it doesn’t equal change, certainly not without a coherent platform for change. Mankiw will go back to teaching his course the way he always teaches it (certainly that was my read of his piece in the Times). I’m reasonably certain that no economist will try to introduce more Keynes into the micro portion of his or her course.
Sure, I wouldn’t expect first year students to be able to put together a coherent critique of “mainstream” economics. Then again, it’s a bit presumptuous to be calling for the reform of an academic discipline based on a two months of study of an introductory course on the matter. Of course the slow evolutionary change of economic thinking isn’t likely to stir the blood of your average student revolutionary, but it’s how ideas actually evolve over time.
I view attacking the students based on how ignorant they may or may not be, as Mankiw did and many here are, as the equivalent to an irrelevant ad hominem argument that ignores the real issues. That the walkout students believe more perspectives could be fit into college intro econ courses is something MANY educated people, inside and outside academia, would agree with. This goes back to Rowe’s question, about who gets to decide what is taught. What do you think Post-Keynesians, for example, have to say about the mainstream economic curriculum? What if some Post-Keynesian or other ideas, even still orthodox, about how the economy and monetary operations works are more accurate than some mainstream beliefs taught in intro econ? The students have realized they only get one perspective in their class, the neoclassical perspective, and they have every right to be concerned about that, particularly given the nature of economics (which is not a pure science) and how its been called into question over the last couple years. It’s absurd to say that they must first achieve a PhD before they can exercise their opinion, to be lost in the archives, as Mandos says.
Also, if the walkout students wanted to make this known nationally and start a national debate, which they did, then I think their tactics made sense. Feel free to call it disrespectful; here’s a little violin playing for you. You’re missing the point, and if you think a sit down in office hours would be more effective, you’re a fool. Obviously this becomes problematic if this starts an excessive episodes of classes everywhere experiencing a walk out, but it’s not that, and I think the students have merit to their complaints, as do many, including Robin Wells. Kids skip class all the time anyways; so if it bothers you, ignore them, and let them walk silently out. If it gets out hand, use academic code of conduct enforcement if it applies.
BTW, I probably shouldn’t have used inflammatory language above, but its target is not Nick Rowe.
WH 10,
Except as the Nick’s original post pointed out the students DON’T only get a neoclassical perspective on economics. So tthe entire premise of their criticism is flawed (a point which would have been obvious to anyone who read ahead in the course outline).
Look, let’s strip this debate of the political overlay that underlies this discussion and which is really irrelevant to the discussion. Imagine a similar debate in another academic discipline, say physics: “Professor Hawkins, you seem like a nice guy, but I’ve been enrolled in your intro to physics course for two months, and I can’t help noticing that you’ve focused heavily on this Einstein fellow and relativity, while we’ve hear nothing about Heisenburg and quantum mechanics. Walkout!”.
Now, its an improbable scenario, but mostly because, absent a political agenda to give a veneer of legitimacy to the walkout, I suspect my hypothetical physics student would, rightly, be seen as a smarmy twit who would be better served by studying both Eistein and Heisenberg than making ill-informed criticisms of the teaching method of their professor.
More to the point, even if you thought Einstein had his head wedged, you’d be well served by studying his ideas so you could pinpoint exactly why he was wrong. The comparison with Marx is telling, there was a fellow who spend days, weeks, months studying the works of smith, ricardo and other classical economists. His criticism is effective precisely because he knew what he was talking about. These students don’t, So their criticism isn’t.
Bob, what are you talking about??? Where in Nick’s original post does it say that? The vast vast vast majority is the neoclassical perspective. That is the school Mankiw hails from, and it’s one he has helped develop considerably. He would agree, along with any other economist.
My feelings have ZERO to do with political agenda. Neither do many others’ belonging to other economic schools. Politics can, but doesn’t have to define differences, and I agree, it’s the wrong grounds on which to base this argument.
Again, economics isn’t a science like physics, so your example is entirely flawed, and it’s evidence you see no room for other theoretical frameworks outside the New Keynesian perspective in intro econ, since you deem it to be ‘the right way of doing things.’
Economics is a formal science like math, logic and linguistics, not a natural science like physics. Further Relativity is a cosmological theory, quantum mechanics is an atomic theory. You get the latter in Chemistry in fact, not Physics, starting in first year.
The difference between economics and physics is that physicists are all agreed about the usefulness and limitations of classical physics. Economists are not agreed about the limitations of classical economics nor which theory is the larger counterpart to Modern Physics. Austrians, Neo-Keyesians, Post-Keynesians. I think MMT fits in here somewhere. Where you go after the basic theory directly impacts what basic material is taught.
Economics as a social and formal science requires a foundational set of assumptions, axioms and social construct. What those are or should be will always be debatable.
wh10,
“It’s absurd to say that they must first achieve a PhD before they can exercise their opinion”
Who is saying that?
“particularly given the nature of economics (which is not a pure science)”
No science is.
“how its been called into question over the last couple years”
Centuries. But here’s the thing: when the historicists or the Marxists or the Veblenists or the Institutionalists criticised, they did so from a position of knowledge with respect to what they were criticising.
“I view attacking the students based on how ignorant they may or may not be, as Mankiw did and many here are, as the equivalent to an irrelevant ad hominem argument that ignores the real issues”
It’s not an ad hominem. It’s pointing out exactly the issue: should an introductory course be an introduction to the popularly held theories in a discipline or some particular set of theories that some people may like? The issue is clearly not “should all theories be covered in the class”, because I haven’t heard anyone advocating that Romanticist economics get taught in introductory economics classes (I wouldn’t even teach that in an introductory history of economics class).
I agree with quite a few heterodox ideas, but I wouldn’t want them to be taught in an introductory course. That’s like teaching Esperanto to a child as its first language.
Bob – “students DON’T only get a neoclassical perspective on economics”
Let’s be clear – Greg Mankiw is a pretty effective advocate of a particular approach to economics; the students are not getting some kind of CBC-bland balanced give-all-sides-equal-time approach. But biased beats boring every time. At least it makes you think.
Having said that:
– Ivy League schools tend to be pretty responsive to their undergrad’s wishes – your $30,000 or $50,000 in tuition does buy you something. I’d be very surprised if Harvard would be letting Mankiw teach Ec 10 on an on-going basis if the students were generally dissatisfied.
– the #1 enemy to academic freedom is not student activism, it is faculty sloth. Every time an instructor hands the design of his or her course over to a publisher – and that’s what using pre-packaged powerpoint slides and test banks amounts to – they’re giving up a little bit of academic freedom. Until in the name of “coordination” “consistent standards” or some other such buzzword we’ll find that we have no option other than to use some designated text, exams from the test bank, etc.
Your final point, Frances, directly raises the eternal debate of Research vs. Teaching which is being discussed in a parallel thread.
Are profs using pre-packaged slides and test banks so they can concentrate on research, their priority and first love? I believe that is a significant motivation.
Bob: Rather than comparing this to a student in a physics class complaining about not enough Heisenberg, you should have compared it to a student in a geometry class complaining about not enough Sartre.
W Peden,
“No science is.”
There’s a difference between say, biology and science. That’s my point, and it’s valid. Disagreeing with anatomy is different than disagreeing with the New Keynesian perspective. Can we not think in shades of grey instead of pure black and white, please?
“Centuries. But here’s the thing: when the historicists or the Marxists or the Veblenists or the Institutionalists criticised, they did so from a position of knowledge with respect to what they were criticising.”
Okay, so above you said no one is saying you have to have a PhD, but this is effectively what you are implying here. The students must be learned, established thinkers in another tradition, for their positions or knowledge to be valid. If I am mistaken, can you please provide rough parameters for when YOU think students have a valid stance to protest? I think that is ludicrous and ad hominem. “You’re opinion is not valid, because you’re ignorant!” Their opinions may very well be valid, yet you struggle to look beyond that possibility since they haven’t completed undergrad or an MA or PhD. That’s ad hominem; judging the person, not the idea. But I’ll tell you what. They know enough to know they’re getting only one side, and they know other perspectives may add value, and they didn’t get these ideas on their own; they see these opinions being expressed by other legitimate entities, and so they work up the courage to protest. Nowhere in their letter did they say “tell us we need welfare.” If that’s what you want to make out of it, fine. Even if that’s how they felt, I may think that’s unfortunate, but I still think the issue they raise is valid.
“The issue is clearly not “should all theories be covered in the class”, because I haven’t heard anyone advocating that Romanticist economics get taught in introductory economics classes (I wouldn’t even teach that in an introductory history of economics class).”
No one said Romanticist economics should be taught. But perhaps a healthy dosing of alternative viewpoints or counterpoints can be fit into the curriculum without overwhelming it? Again shades of grey, sir, instead of black and white, please. Or are you so presumptuous to suggest Ec10 curricula have no further room for improvement, and this isn’t one valid angle of criticism? You’re avoiding the issue by hyperbolizing solutions.
“I agree with quite a few heterodox ideas, but I wouldn’t want them to be taught in an introductory course. That’s like teaching Esperanto to a child as its first language.”
I plainly disagree. You’re being hyperbolic again. For example, what about basic operational matters, such as the money multiplier? What if a lot of research, from orthodox to heterodox researchers, from the BIS to the Fed, challenges how this is taught in mainstream intro econ? You don’t think there’s room to show another viewpoint, on these limited, but fundamental matters? I beg to differ, sir. And don’t tell me this isn’t what the students were asking for. I am talking about the issues that matter – different viewpoints, which were requested – not your pejorative reading into what you perceive as ignorant characters.
I see no reason why econ courses can’t supplement or adapt to very basic things like these, incorporating the viewpoints of other schools without making the class unworkable.
And if there isn’t room for full explication, then at least mention potential flaws/alternative viewpoints and give sources for further reading.
Coming out of my undergrad (not a major in econ, like most people), at a very reputable school, I did not appreciate how much else was out there, for the simple reason that econ teachers never bothered to emphasize not only the flaws but also the alternatives to what they were teaching, and that’s dangerous. Just as a history course only showing one viewpoint, would be.
Frances,
“Let’s be clear – Greg Mankiw is a pretty effective advocate of a particular approach to economics; the students are not getting some kind of CBC-bland balanced give-all-sides-equal-time approach.”
Thank you for recognizing.
“But biased beats boring every time. At least it makes you think.”
Who said it had to be boring or overwhelming?
“Having said that:
– Ivy League schools tend to be pretty responsive to their undergrad’s wishes – your $30,000 or $50,000 in tuition does buy you something. I’d be very surprised if Harvard would be letting Mankiw teach Ec 10 on an on-going basis if the students were generally dissatisfied.”
Look, I doubt I would have supported the walkout if I was still in college, when I was within the ivory tower of the mainstream, focused mostly on getting the A. I would never have known better. I would completely have supported the side that the students didn’t ‘know any better’ and what was taught to me in intro/intermediate econ was for all intents and purposes accurate enough. Out of college, and being exposed to ideas that were never even mentioned, learning how political the econ academic profession is, potential flaws in theories I learned, etc etc, I can’t tell you how frustrated I am. I feel lied to, duped. I’m not talking about grand theories, like the Austrian school. I am talking about fundamentals, like how banking works, how monetary operations work, etc etc, perspectives on basics not shared.
The financial crisis has rocked many foundations in ways perhaps not rocked before in a world that is much different from the past, and the walkout is a product of that. It’s coming not just from hippy students, it’s coming from the other side of as well, like George Soros and INET, like Wells and her blog post.
wh10,
“There’s a difference between say, biology and science. That’s my point, and it’s valid. Disagreeing with anatomy is different than disagreeing with the New Keynesian perspective.”
I have no idea how I was supposed to extract that from “Economics is not a pure science.”
“Can we not think in shades of grey instead of pure black and white, please?”
Like “pure science” versus “impure science”?
“Okay, so above you said no one is saying you have to have a PhD, but this is effectively what you are implying here.”
It is not. Having a PhD in a subject is not necessary for knowing about it; from some basically fraudulent institutions, having a PhD is not even sufficient for knowing about it!
“They know enough to know they’re getting only one side”
I assume that this is not, in itself, grounds to complain about the content of any course?
“No one said Romanticist economics should be taught.”
Why not? Why should people only get one side of the Romanticist/non-Romanticist distinction in economics?
“But perhaps a healthy dosing of alternative viewpoints or counterpoints can be fit into the curriculum without overwhelming it?”
Into the curriculum? Certainly. Into an introductory course? Probably not.
“Or are you so presumptuous to suggest Ec10 curricula have no further room for improvement, and this isn’t one valid angle of criticism?”
That’s a complex question, so I’m going to unpack it: the answer to the first conjunct is “no”, the answer to the second conjunct is “yes”.
“I plainly disagree. You’re being hyperbolic again. For example, what about basic operational matters, such as the money multiplier? What if a lot of research, from orthodox to heterodox researchers, from the BIS to the Fed, challenges how this is taught in mainstream intro econ? You don’t think there’s room to show another viewpoint, on these limited, but fundamental matters?”
There is certainly room. The question is where. The answer is “Not in an introductory course”. Now, I had thought that US schools don’t teach that money multiplier stuff (in the UK, I don’t think they ever did) but if there’s enough research and general against it that its not a prerequisite for understanding basic economic discussions, then it shouldn’t be taught in introductory courses.
“I see no reason why econ courses can’t supplement or adapt to very basic things like these, incorporating the viewpoints of other schools without making the class unworkable.”
Time.
“And if there isn’t room for full explication, then at least mention potential flaws/alternative viewpoints and give sources for further reading.”
That’s certainly a good thing to do. Even then, though, one needs criteria on which to decide what to mention e.g. mentioning an Austrian School perspective is going to be more relevant to contemporary debates than mentioning a Romanticist Economics perspective.
“Coming out of my undergrad (not a major in econ, like most people), at a very reputable school, I did not appreciate how much else was out there, for the simple reason that econ teachers never bothered to emphasize not only the flaws but also the alternatives to what they were teaching, and that’s dangerous. Just as a history course only showing one viewpoint, would be.”
That is perhaps the biggest problems for teaching a subject like economics, which requires so much time before a student can properly grasp the basics, as a minor. Similar problems exist in many disciplines, I find: you can’t get to grips with contemporary debates in physics or entomology or archaeology or logic or geology or palaeontology without a huge amount of background knowledge. On the other hand (and I say this as a humanities student who doesn’t regard it as a defect) the background knowledge required for an intelligent person to engage sensibly with basic yet relevant debates in philosophy or jurisprudence or literary theory can be learnt in a single one-year course. (History and criminal law are examples of that do require a lot of background knowledge, that can’t be taught in a single course, prior to engaging in the big debates.)
I agree that there is an issue here: a good education in a subject should enlighten students on the disagreements within the subject. The question is when they should learn the various perspectives, and I think it should be when a basic minimum knowledge about the subject has been acquired and this can only be acquired through the perspective of a particular set of economic theories.
Part of the solution, perhaps, would be to make a course in the history of economics a prerequisite of getting a degree in the subject. That’s the place to learn about the debates in the subject. (Entirely by fortuitous accident, it would also open up employment opportunities for those of us who want to teach history of economics courses.)
“”But biased beats boring every time. At least it makes you think.””
The last sentence here bothers me as well. Lots of things can be difficult and make one think. But if there’s a decent chance they’re not representative of the real world, then perhaps that bias deserves a little counterpoint. Other social sciences seem to have much more humility in recognizing the importance of presenting multiple viewpoints.
Sorry- meant ‘b/w biology and economics’ RE: “There’s a difference between say, biology and science. “
Nick, you’ve risen to the bait! Because you are a serious tenured economist, you interpret the protest as an attempt at a serious critique of the assumptions of textbook economics and an attack on academic freedom. To me it seems to be political theatre: a gesture of solidarity with the Occupy movement whose only chance of success was to provoke the outrage of articulate and eminent professors like, well, you!
wh10, I think you missed the point a bit.
It’s not that the students need a certain amount of knowledge before they can criticise: it is that they purposefully refused to learn. They said, “This is not worth learning” and walked out. Furthermore, if they had bothered to pay attention, they would know that their articulated concerns were going to be focussed on in the second semester. The class they walked out on was a class on income inequality.
That is willful ignorance.
When would a walkout be justified? I think a walkout would be justified if the professor just ignored all subjects that disagreed with his/her views, and would not accept any disagreement from students. That is a bad professor, and you can learn little from such an environment. Drop the class and take another.
As much as I generally disagree with Mankiw on many subjects, he is also (from what I have seen) not one to shut down opponents. He is certainly biased (as we all are) and will certainly argue for his brand of conservative Keynesianism, but he listens to the other side, and will try to present them fairly. I think a good example of this is the notes from one of his lectures on left vs. right economists: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-do-right-and-left-differ.html
Yes, you can easily see the right-wing bias in there. But you can also see someone who is trying to be fair. Look at how he handles the walkout: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/business/know-what-youre-protesting-economic-view.html?_r=1 The first thing he does is praise the people who do the walkout—”I applaud the protesters for thinking beyond their own parochial concerns and trying to make society a better place for everyone.”
They walked out to raise a stink and bring national attention to these issues, and it was darn effective. If these students have decided to keep skipping class, perhaps that’s another story. I’m sure, though, you’ve missed college classes before, for various reasons, and then put in an honest attempt to learn the material you missed. Does the student who purposely slept in after a late night of studying deserve your label of willful ignorance as well? Anyways, this is besides the point and more of the ad hominem I am referring to. It’s focusing on the protesters, instead of the issues they raise, which goes beyond the narrow scope of the political issues you refer to.
Mankiw’s article is quite troubling to me. Is this really what a humble teacher would write, truly interested in his students’ viewpoints? Mankiw’s article comes off as disingenuous, a pathetic exercise in the self-defense of himself and his economic ideology, New Keynesianism (yet he writes “I don’t view the study of economics as laden with ideology”), all while disparaging the intelligence of his students. And he gets away with it by preying on most peoples’ ignorance of the diversity of economic schools, effectively hiding behind the secret dominance of New Keynesianism, by describing it with language that makes it sound objective, and using the same ad hominem approach some people here are using, which is to assert that these students are ignorant and then ignore any real issues their protest has surfaced regarding the way econ is taught in America. It’s a great recipe for establishing innocence and putting down the students, instead of taking the time to rise above his ego and write something constructive about econ education.
Robin Wells’s article is more in the spirit of a humble, open-minded teacher trying to learn something from one’s students, and she hails from the same economic ideology as Mankiw. Perhaps I wouldn’t expect Mankiw to go as far over on the humble scale as Wells, but I’d expect more balance.
Noah Smith is more likely to side with you guys, than me, but he puts it well here, and this is my main gripe:
“As it stands, students in introductory economics courses walk away feeling that econ theories are “received wisdom” – that a theory is just something that a smart guy dreamed up, and then concluded was right because it sort of seemed plausible (which, sad, to say, describes some econ theories all too well)”
The average student though, in an intro econ course, typically walks away with the feeling that the theories are essentially ‘right enough,’ with no sense at all of how flawed some researchers say they are and what some of the alternatives may be. They don’t know any better. This is indoctrination and incredibly problematic to me.
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-to-teach-intro-economics-students.html
What is so special about the US that when their policy-makers screw up, the world must re-invent principles courses?
And here is Galbraith, obviously passionate and biased in his own beliefs, but stabbing at the heart of the beast, which is the oppression of all other ideas that are not what currently is mainstream, yet ideas that have proven worth, particularly throughout the crisis.
Click to access TA09EconomistGalbraith.pdf
“The urgent need is instead to expand the academic space
and the public visibility of ongoing work that is of actual value when faced with
the many deep problems of economic life in our time. It is to make possible careers
in those areas, and for people with those perspectives, that have been proven worthy
by events. This is—obviously—not a matter to be entrusted to the economics
departments themselves. It is an imperative, instead, for university administrators,
for funding agencies, for foundations, and for students and perhaps their parents.
The point is not to argue endlessly with Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The point
is to move past them toward the garden that must be out there, that in fact is out
there, somewhere.”
Once again, Stephen, being hyperbolic and avoiding the issues, and this can stand completely independent of the crisis.
wh10 you’ve made a number of arguments but I still find it hard to know exactly what your criticisms of the undergraduate econ curriculum is. I think it would be helpful for clarification if you could set out what you think ideal curriculum for principles econ or alternatively whole of undergrad econ should be. That way we might actually know what ‘perspectives’ you think are missing or what misrepresentations the current curriculum is creating.
wh10: quoting Jamie Galbraith: “This is—obviously—not a matter to be entrusted to the economics
departments themselves. It is an imperative, instead, for university administrators,
for funding agencies, for foundations, and for students and perhaps their parents.”
Aha! now we are getting to the main issue of the post. Who decides what we should teach? Does this mean Jamie Galbraith wants deans, governments, donors, students and parents, to decide what sort of economics we teach? What does this say about academic freedom? Can we also get the same people to stop Marxists teaching Anthropology? Aside from economics, and the apolitical science and engineering departments, the whole rest of the university is lefty. It could be seen as a “hostile environment” for conservative students and ideas. The many failures of mainstream economic policy pale in comparison to the failures of Marxism. What about some goose sauce?
When William Buckley said sort of the same thing as Jamie Galbraith, the academic establishment went ballistic.
(I’m a little disappointed nobody has mention the Buckley book.)
David, fair enough. I am not prepared to write a curriculum, and I don’t want to get into a fight here about which ideas are right enough or wrong enough to be included in the curriculum. But my feelings are similar to Galbraith’s, which is that the mainstream has shut out all that is not. I don’t like that the vast majority of students remain ignorant of this, I am personally resentful of it, and it’s probably not an impossible task to introduce counterpoints from schools outside of mainstream to very basic fundamentals taught in intro econ, without making the course overwhelming. Wells’ article takes a different approach, but her ideas are not bad either.
But I am not ready to buy that the intro econ curriculum has no room for further improvement, for further diversity of perspective.
Nick, I agree this issue is problematic, and I don’t necessarily agree with Jamie’s opinion here. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for constructive change, that teachers can teach that which they may not entirely agree with or other perspectives, just as is regularly done in any other social science.
“It is an imperative, instead, for university administrators,
for funding agencies, for foundations, and for students and perhaps their parents.”
If you want university to be nothing more than an extension of high school, this is the path to follow.
How easy is it going to be to hire creative smart people – do you even need to hire creative smart people – if people are told what they have to teach?
And what do you think those administrators will choose? Do you think they will choose an obscure heterodox intro text, e.g. the one by my friend Jean Shackelford and co-authors, or take the safe route and go with Mankiw’s best selling text?
What critical theory/Marxist understanding suggests that university administrators, funding agencies and foundations will side with those who seek to overturn capitalism-as-we-know it, as opposed to siding with the oppressors?
(Sorry, Nick, I haven’t read Buckley).
I would agree, there is problem a middle ground between what Jamie suggests and what is done now. Or perhaps what is done now is the best approach. But I think this remains problematic given the level of politics and oppression of ideas within mainstream econ that Jamie laments.
wh10: “But I think this remains problematic given the level of politics and oppression of ideas within mainstream econ that Jamie laments.”
Perhaps that used to be the case 20 years ago, and perhaps it’s still the case in macro. But in micro, if you have good data, e.g. some kind of convincing natural experiment (such as a government policy that randomly selects a bunch of kids for some kind of radical intervention) and whiz-bang techniques, it doesn’t really matter what your politics are.
Honestly, in the past 20 years I’d argue that the profession has become far less political than it was. Now perhaps that’s because mathematicians and engineers aren’t the most political of animals (and a lot of new hires come from math/physics/engineering undergrad backgrounds), but everything has its pluses and minuses.
Econ 1000 is one of the few battlegrounds, because there’s far more scope for influencing public opinion, and far less scope for high tech theory.