French Student Uprising: Reprise, Rehash, Rebel - Kick it Over! â The Rise of Post-Autistic Economics - Adbusters #55 Sept-Oct 2004

[Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers@xxxxxxxxx>]

Upgraded to General Strike today:
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No Future
#55 Sept-Oct 2004

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/55/Kick_it_Over_The_Rise_of_PostAutistic_Economics.html

Kick it Over! â The Rise of Post-Autistic Economics

The university-aged children of Franceâs ruling class ought to have been 
contentedly biding their time. They were, after all, destined to move 
into the high-powered positions reserved for graduates of the elite 
Ãcole Normale SupÃrieure (ENS). âThe ENS is for the very good students, 
and the very good students arenât afraid to ask questions,â says 
Sorbonne economist Bernard Geurrien.

He was addressing a conference on the disconnect between mainstream 
neoclassical economics instruction and reality. Economics has an 
ideological function, he told them, to put forth the idea that the 
markets will resolve everything. In fact, he added, economic theory 
absolutely doesnât show that.

A group of economics students, their worst fears confirmed, approached 
Guerrien eager to âdo something.â A week later, 15 of them gathered in a 
classroom to hash out a plan of attack. Someone called the reigning 
neoclassical dogma âautistic!â The analogy would stick: like sufferers 
of autism, the field of economics was intelligent but obsessive, 
narrowly focussed, and cut off from the outside world.

By June, their outrage had coalesced into a petition signed by hundreds 
of students demanding reform within economics teaching, which they said 
had become enthralled with complex mathematical models that only operate 
in conditions that donât exist. âWe wish to escape from imaginary 
worlds!â they declared. Networking through the internet and reaching the 
media through powerful family connections, they made their case.

âCall to teachers: wake up before itâs too late!â they demanded. âWe no 
longer want to have this autistic science imposed on us.â They decried 
an excessive reliance on mathematics âas an end in itself,â and called 
for a plurality of approaches.

With that, âautisme-Ãconomie,â the post-autistic economics (PAE) 
movement, was born.

Their revolutionary arguments created an earthquake in the French media, 
beginning with a report in Le Monde that sent a chill through the 
academic establishment. Several prominent economists voiced support and 
a professorsâ petition followed. The French government, no doubt 
recalling the revolutionary moment of May 1968, when students led a 
10-day general strike that rocked the republic to its foundations, 
promptly set up a special commission to investigate. It was headed by 
leading economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi, who also traveled to Madrid to 
address Spainâs nascent âpost-autisticâ student movement. Fitoussiâs 
findings: the rebels had a cause. Most important to the PAE, Fitoussi 
agreed to propose new courses oriented to âthe big problemsâ being 
ignored by mainstream economics: unemployment, the economy and the 
environment.

A backlash was inevitable. Several economists (notably the American 
Robert Solow from MIT), launched a return volley. What followed was an 
attempt to discredit the PAE by implying that the students were 
anti-intellectuals opposed to the âscientificityâ of neoclassical 
economics. The accusations didnât stick: the dissenters were top 
students who had done the math and found it didnât add up.

Gilles Raveaud, a key pae student leader, along with Emmanuelle 
Benicourt and Iona Marinescu, sees todayâs faith in neoclassical 
economics as âan intellectual gameâ that, like Marxism and the Bible, 
purports to explain everything, rather than admitting there are many 
issues it hasnât figured out. âWeâve lost religion,â says Raveaud, âso 
weâve got something else to give meaning to our lives.â

Benicourt described his hope for PAE as follows: âWe hope it will 
trigger concrete transformations of the way economics is taught . . . We 
believe that understanding real-world economic phenomena is enormously 
important to the future well-being of humankind, but that the current 
narrow, antiquated and naive approaches to economics and economics 
teaching make this understanding impossible. We therefore hold it to be 
extremely important, both ethically and economically, that reforms like 
the ones we have proposed are, in the years to come, carried through, 
not just in France, but throughout the world.â

Raveaud and Marinescu, key French PAE student leaders, visited the 
Cambridge Workshop on Realism and Economics in the UK. âIt must have 
been the right time,â says Phil Faulkner, a PhD student at Cambridge 
University. That June he and 26 other disgruntled PhD students issued 
their own reform manifesto, called âOpening Up Economics,â that soon 
attracted 750 signatures. Economics students at Oxford University, who 
had been at the same workshop, followed with their own âpost-autisticâ 
manifesto and website. Similar groups linked to heterodox (as opposed to 
orthodox) economics began emerging elsewhere in Europe and South America.

The Cambridge rebellion âwas prompted by frustration,â says Faulkner, 
but they hadnât expected such a positive reception from fellow students. 
âIf anyone were to be happy about the way economics had gone, weâd 
expect it to be PhD students, because if they were unhappy with it, they 
simply wouldnât be here. In fact, that wasnât the case.â

As expected, Cambridge ignored them. Their efforts, Faulkner explains, 
were meant to show support for the French students and to use their 
privileged position at the esteemed economics department to demonstrate 
to the rest of the world their discontent. Some of the signatories 
worried that speaking out could have dire consequences, and the original 
letter was unsigned. âI think itâs more future possibilities, getting 
jobs, etc., that [made them think] it might not be smart to be 
associated with this stuff,â says Faulkner. He says he already knew that 
his research interests meant he would have to work outside of the 
mainstream: âThere was nothing to lose really.â

Edward Fullbrook, a research fellow at the University of the West of 
England, had already launched the first post-autistic economics 
newsletter in September 2000. Inspired by the French student revolt and 
outraged by stories emerging from American campuses that courses on the 
history of economic thought were being eradicated (which he viewed as an 
effort to facilitate complete indoctrination of students), Fullbrook 
battled hate mail and virus attacks to get the newsletter off the 
ground. Soon, prominent economists such as James Galbraith stepped up to 
offer encouragement and hard copy. The subscriber list ballooned from 
several dozen to 7,500 around the world.

Fullbrook edited The Crisis in Economics, a book based on PAE 
contributions, now being translated into Chinese. Textbook publishers, 
always hunting for the next big thing, have been inquiring about PAE 
textbooks. It makes sense, says Fullbrook, since enrollments in standard 
economics classes have been dropping, cutting into textbook revenues. In 
other words, students just arenât buying it. Ironically, says Fullbrook, 
âMarket forces are working against neoclassical economics.â

One of his contributors is Australian economist Steve Keen, who led a 
student rebellion in 1973 that led to the formation of the political 
economy department at Sydney University. âNeoclassical economics has 
become a religion,â says Keen. âBecause it has a mathematical veneer, 
and I emphasize the word veneer, they actually believe itâs true. Once 
you believe something is true, youâre locked into its way of thinking 
unless thereâs something that can break in from the outside and destroy 
that confidence.â

But the neoclassical model still reigns supreme at Cambridge. Phil 
Faulkner now teaches at a university college, but is limited to 
mainstream economics, the only game in town. âIf youâre into math, itâs 
a fun thing to do,â he says. âItâs little problems, little puzzles, so 
itâs an enjoyable occupation. But I donât think itâs insightful. I donât 
think it tells these kids about the things it claims to describe, 
markets or individuals.â



Sitting in an overcrowded cafà near Harvard Square, talking over the din 
of full-volume Fleetwood Mac and espresso fueled chatter, Gabe Katsh 
describes his disillusionment with economics teaching at Harvard 
University. The red-haired 21-year-old makes it clear that not all of 
Harvardâs elite student body, who pay close to $40,000 a year, are the 
ârationallyâ self-interested beings that Harvardâs most influential 
economics course pegs them as.
âI was disgusted with the way ideas were being presented in this class 
and I saw it as hypocritical â given that Harvard values critical 
thinking and the free marketplace of ideas â that they were then having 
this course which was extremely doctrinaire,â says Katsh. âIt only 
presented one side of the story when there are obviously others to be 
presented.â

For two decades, Harvardâs introductory economics class has been 
dominated by one man: Martin Feldstein. It was a New York Times article 
on Feldstein titled âScholarly Mentor To Bushâs Team,â that lit the fire 
under the Harvard activist. Calling the Bush economic team a âFeldstein 
alumni club,â the article declared that he had âbuilt an empire of 
influence that is probably unmatched in his field.â Not only that, but 
thousands of Harvard students âwho have taken his, and only his, 
economics class during their Harvard years have gone on to become 
policy-makers and corporate executives,â the article noted. âI really 
like it; Iâve been doing it for 18 years,â Feldstein told the Times. âI 
think it changes the way they see the world.â

Thatâs exactly Katshâs problem. As a freshman, heâd taken Ec 10, 
Feldsteinâs course. âI donât think Iâm alone in thinking that Ec 10 
presents itself as politically neutral, presents itself as a science, 
but really espouses a conservative political agenda and the ideas of 
this professor, who is a former Reagan advisor, and who is unabashedly 
Republican,â he says. âI donât think Iâm alone in wanting a class that 
presents a balanced viewpoint and is not trying to cover up its 
conservative political bias with economic jargon.â

In his first year at Harvard, Katsh joined a student campaign to bring a 
living wage to Harvard support staff. Fellow students were sympathetic, 
but many said they couldnât support the campaign because, as theyâd 
learned in Ec 10, raising wages would increase unemployment and hurt 
those it was designed to help. During a three-week sit-in at the Harvard 
presidentâs office, students succeeded in raising workersâ wages, though 
not to âliving wageâ standards.

After the living wage âvictoryâ, Harvard activists from Students for a 
Humane and Responsible Economics (SHARE) decided to stage an 
intervention. This time, they went after the source, leafleting Ec 10 
classes with alternative readings. For a lecture on corporations, they 
handed out articles on corporate fraud. For a free trade lecture, they 
dispensed critiques of the WTO and IMF. Later, they issued a manifesto 
reminiscent of the French post-autistic revolt, and petitioned for an 
alternative class. Armed with 800 signatures, they appealed for a 
critical alternative to Ec 10. Turned down flat, they succeeded in 
introducing the course outside the economics department.

Their actions follow on the Kansas City Proposal, an open letter to 
economics departments âin agreement with and in support of the 
Post-Autistic Economics Movement and the Cambridge Proposalâ that was 
signed by economics students and academics from 22 countries.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers illustrates the kind of thinking that 
emerges from neoclassical economics. Summers is the same former chief 
economist of the World Bank who sparked international outrage after his 
infamous memo advocating pollution trading was leaked in the early 
1990s. âJust between you and me, shouldnât the World Bank be encouraging 
MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed 
Countries]?â the memo inquired. âI think the economic logic behind 
dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable 
and we should face up to that . . . Iâve always thought that 
under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted . . . â

Brazilâs then-Secretary of the Environment, Jose Lutzenburger, replied: 
âYour reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane . . . Your 
thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, 
reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of 
many conventional âeconomistsâ concerning the nature of the world we 
live in.â

Summers later claimed the memo was intended ironically, while reports 
suggested it was written by an aide. In any case, Summers devoted his 
2003/2004 prayer address at Harvard to a âmoralâ defense of sweatshop 
labor, calling it the âbest alternativeâ for workers in low-wage countries.

âYou canât ignore the academic foundations for whatâs going on in 
politics,â says Jessie Marglin, a Harvard sophomore with share. share 
didnât want a liberal class with its own hegemony of ideas. It wanted âa 
critical class in which you have all the perspectives rather than just 
that of the right.â Without an academic basis for criticism, other 
approaches âarenât legitimized by the institution,â she says. âIt 
becomes their word versus Professor Feldstein, who is very powerful.â

Harvard economics professor Stephen Marglin, Jessieâs father, teaches 
the new course. A faculty member since 1967, Marglin was the tail end of 
a generation formed by the Great Depression and World War II. âThis 
generation,â he says, âbelieved that in some cases markets could be the 
solution, but that markets could also be the problem.â

His new course still uses the Ec 10 textbook, but includes a critical 
evaluation of the underlying assumptions. Marglin wants to provide 
balance, rather than bias.

âIâm trying to provide ammunition for people to question what it is 
about this economic [system] that makes them want to go out in the 
streets to protest it,â he says. âIâm responding in part to whatâs going 
on and I think the post-autistic economics group is responding to that. 
Economics doesnât lead politics, it follows politics. Until there is a 
broadening of the political spectrum beyond a protest in Seattle or a 
protest in Washington, there will not be a broader economics. People 
like me can plant a few seeds but those seeds wonât germinate until the 
conditions are a lot more suitable.â

The revolution is spreading. A slogan emblazoned on a wall on a Madrid 
campus, where the PAE movement has been making inroads, makes its case: 
âÂLa economia es de gente, no de curvas!â â âEconomics is about people, 
not curves!â

Deborah Campbell