[A-List] Harvard economics students' dissent

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Forwarded from Douglas Chalmers, as featured in the latest Post-Autistic
Economics Review:


The student rebellion against unreality and dogmatism in economics that
began in France in June 2000, spreading to Cambridge UK and
reverberating around the world, has now erupted at Harvard.  In recent
weeks over 700 Harvard students and alumni have signed a petition
addressed to the Harvard Economics Department asking it to approve a new
introductory economics course proposed by Professor Stephen Marglin that
would cover "a broader spectrum of views", "examine the assumptions of
economics", and "challenge students to think critically".

"The point," said Marglin to the New York Times (4 March 2003), "is not
to substitute one set of biases for another.  It's to provide a more
balanced approach."  The Boston Globe (9 March) reported that Marglin's
course would "encourage the critique of mainstream economists'
assumptions" and that Marglin and Samuel Bowles, now at Amherst, first
proposed a similar course at Harvard almost 30 years ago.  Students,
said Bowles to the Globe, would "benefit from knowing that economics,
like most sciences, is not a settled doctrine, but a lively and
much-debated set of hypotheses."

Daniel DiMaggio, one of the student leaders of the Harvard reform
movement, says that Harvard's existing introductory course "is fairly
ideological, if not completely ideological.  We've been leafleting it
with articles that have a different perspective, but we've been hoping
that something like this [Marglin's proposed course] would come along.
We've had a pretty amazing level of response so far.  I've been pretty
excited about the number of people who have signed [the petition]."

Michael Y. Lee, the petition's author, says that "there is a strong
student demand for an alternative intro economics course.  The free
market principles that economists worship should also apply to these
courses to a certain degree, and right now Ec 10 holds a monopoly on
intro courses."

Benjamin B. Collins, another student, says that his main complaint is
not the ideological spin, but rather the apathy.  "Students just copy
down what's on the board", he said.  "What excites me about this new
class is that Prof. Marglin seems to be really interested in building
and teaching a new course that will force students to learn actively.
If he succeeds in getting students engaged and thinking critically about
not only mainstream economic theory itself, but about the philosophy and
history of economics, the problem of bias will fix itself, because
students will be forced to think for themselves about economics."

The Harvard Crimson reports (17 March) that the university's
Undergraduate Council has postponed until April a debate on the proposal
for Marglin's post-autistic introductory course.

Meanwhile the Harvard students have issued a "mission statement".  It
includes the following passage, highly reminiscent of the initial
petition from the French students.

We believe that the field of economics plays a critical role in shaping
the basic organizational structure of society and informing policies
(both domestic and international) that strongly affect individual
welfare.  Because of the practical impact of economics, we believe
economics education has important human consequences.  Economic models
are lenses through which students are taught to view how society should
function.  We believe that Harvard, by only providing one model of
economics, fails to provide critical perspectives or alternative models
for analyzing the economy and its social consequences.  Without
providing a true marketplace for economic ideas, Harvard fails to
prepare students to be critical thinkers and engaged citizens.  We
believe that the values and political convictions inherent within the
standard economic models taught at Harvard inevitably influence the
values and political convictions of Harvard students and even the career
choices that they make.  Finally, by falsely presenting economics as a
positive science devoid of ethical values, we believe Harvard strips
students of their intellectual agency and prevents them from being able
to make up their own minds.

The Harvard students' full manifesto is available
<http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/Harvard2.htm> here.  Students at
other universities wishing to launch similar PAE initiatives would do
well to consult this document, as well as the
<http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/texts/a-e-petition.htm> French
Students' Open Letter, the
<http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/Camproposal.htm> Cambridge
Students' Proposal and the international
<http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/KC.htm> Kansas City Proposal.






BM__The_Harvard_PetitionThe Harvard Student Petition


To:  The Faculty Members of the Harvard Economics Department

We, the undersigned, believe that Harvard has a responsibility to
provide its eight hundred introductory economics students with a more
balanced perspective than is currently offered in Social Analysis 10:
Principles of Economics, commonly known as Ec 10.

We are therefore delighted that Stephen Marglin, the Walter S. Barker
Professor of Economics, has proposed to teach a one-semester alternative
introductory microeconomics class. This proposed class will cover the
same material as the first semester of Ec 10 and use the same text as Ec
10 does, but it will attempt a better balance and coverage of a broader
spectrum of views in the Readings/Workbook. It will also examine the
assumptions of economics critically, so that students can assess the
limits as well as the strengths of economics. Taken with the second
semester of Ec 10, we believe that students would receive a solid
introduction to the principles of economics.

We believe that a liberal arts education should not only teach students
the accepted modes of thinking, but also challenge students to think
critically and deeply about conventional truths. In the spirit of a
liberal-arts education, we urge the esteemed members of the Harvard
Economics Department to approve Professor Marglin's proposed course.

Sincerely,
 <http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ec10alt> The
Undersigned