Re: [Pen-l] The economics professions

[raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 7:45 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Assuming that even criminals believe in what they preach, one can find a
> less moralistic explanation. A profession lives by thyose it recruits
> into its rannks from undergraduates. What about economics as now taught
> would attract radical students to join the profession? If those
> attracted to it are overwhelmingly conservative, it doesn't take any
> particular direct pressure on economists to elicit conservative results.
>

We might add that this sort of thing is not peculiar to economics
either. A couple of years back, there was a big controversy about
whether string theorists are monopolizing theoretical physics by
intimidation and indoctrination:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=2

It is naive to think that any academic or scientist is only "searching
for the truth". The truth can be a very complicated thing..

However it is definitely true that academics are motivated less by
money as compared to businessmen.
-raghu.

--
Did you hear about the dyslexic Satanist? He sold his soul to Santa.
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