sanity, humanity and science
post-autistic
economics newsletter
No.
1, September 2000
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subscribe, send a blank email to pae_news@btinternet.com
The French economics mainstream is in a state of shock and apprehension
following dramatic and unexpected events late in June.
On the 21st the influential Paris daily, Le Monde, featured a long
article under the headline "Economics Students Denounce the Lack
of Pluralism in the Teaching Offered". Economics students at the
École Normale Supérieure, France's premier institution of higher learning,
were circulating with great success a petition protesting against an excessive
mathematical formalisation.
The petition notes "a real schizophrenia" created by making modelling "an
end in itself" and thereby cutting economics off from reality and forcing
it into a state of "autism". The students,
said a sympathetic Le Monde, call for an end to the hegemony
of neoclassical theory and approaches derived from it, in favour of a
pluralism that will include other approaches, especially those which
permit the consideration of "concrete realities". Le
Monde found French economists of renown, including Michel Vernières,
Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Daniel Cohen, willing to speak out in support of the
students. Fitoussi, current head of the jury of the economics' agrégation,
said that "the students are right to denounce the way economics is
generally taught" and that the over-use of mathematics "leads to a
disembodiment of economic discourse". Daniel Cohen, economics
professor at the École Normale Supérieure, spoke of "the pathological
role" played by mathematics in economics. Meanwhile, The
Minister of Education, Jack Lang, assured Le Monde that he would
study closely the appeal from the students.
French radio and television also reported the students complaints and confirmed their
legitimacy. On the 21st, BFM said that it was now recognized that "the
teaching of economics no longer had any relation with the real world"
and that "this discipline is going through an undeniable
crisis". Also on the 21st, L'Humanité quoted extensively from
the students' open letter, while noting that in recent years several renown
economists had expressed similar views.
On the 23rd, Les Echos reported that a government report on
university economics teaching had reached conclusions similar to those of
the students. In their lengthy article, Les Echos noted that
it is increasingly recognized that economics' "malaise is general and
of longstanding" and that "under the guise of being scientific"
it has cultivated an anti-scientific environment "which leaves no room
for reflection and debate".
On the 26th, the weekly, Marianne, carried an article about the
student petition against "dogmatism" in the teaching of economics and
for its replacement by "a pluralism of explanations".
Marianne said that the petition, which was now on the Web, had 500
signatures, as well as growing support from economics teachers and interest from
the highest levels of the French government.
On June 30th, Le Nouvel Economiste, referring to the students' petition
and "mobilisation", declared that economics had succumbed to a
"pathological taste for a-priori ideologies and mathematical formalisation
disconnected from reality." Economics, it continued, should give up
its false emulation of physics and "should instead look to the human
sciences".
In July, French media interest continued to fuel the mobilisation.
On the 3rd, La Tribune featured a long article titled "Why a
Reform of the Teaching of Economics". It began by saying that all
concerned parties agree that economics is in crisis and that "a debate
should be opened on this subject" and that the students' initiative aimed
to bring this about. Economics, said La Tribune, had become
lost in "mondes imaginaires" and "l'économie de Robinson Crusoé"
and intellectually enfeebled by "the dogmatism that reigns in the
teaching of the discipline." Alternatives Economiques carried
an article titled "The Revolt of the Students" which noted that French
Nobel Prize winner, Maurice Allais had, despite his mathematical approach, come
to conclusions similar to those of the students.
L'Express, France's equivalent to Time, carried
an article "L'économie, science autiste?", which aired the
students' analysis and complaints. It also reported that the students'
petition now had more than 600 signatures, and that their teachers were now
starting a petition of their own in support.
On the 22nd of July, Politis reported on the students' cause and on the
--"autism" into which economics had fallen in consequence of its
"obsession to produce a social physics". Politis noted
that student support for the petition was widespread, including not only
students from the most prestigious universities, but also from the less
celebrated, both in Paris and in the provinces. "Pluralism should be
part of the cultural base of economists." Instead,
"neoclassical theory dominates because it rests on a simple set of axioms,
easily mathematized." The coming academic year, concluded Politis,
"promises to be agitated."
We have learned that the economics students' petition now has 800 signatures and
the economists' petition 147. The latter includes some of the most
illustrious names in French economics, e.g., Robert Boyer, André Orléan,
Michel Aglietta, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Daniel Cohen. It concludes by
calling for "a national conference that will open a public debate for
all."
UNITED STATES
At last month's 10th World Congress of Social Economics at the University
of Cambridge, American participants reported that in the USA the purge of
non-neoclassical and non-mathematically oriented economists from university
faculties continues.
Conferees spoke of the increasing "stalinization" of the profession.
Unlike in France where the fight-back has begun, in the States there are not yet signs
of the formation of the critical mass needed to turn economics away from 19th
century dogmas. It is agreed , however, that the number of academic
economists in American who are out of sympathy with the orthodoxy comprise a
sizeable minority. But they are fragmented, often intimidated and lack the
means of joining together to exert their collective weight and moral authority.
Meanwhile, it was agreed, the American economics' clock runs backwards.
American economists at the World Congress traded horror stories about the new
wave of neo-classical "stalinization". History of economic
thought courses are now being targeted as sources of ideas whereby students
might question or place in perspective orthodoxy. The goal is to create
"history-free environments" in which students can be indoctrinated
"more efficiently" into the neo-classical/mainstream belief system.
For example, it was reported that from this fall the University of North
Carolina is discontinuing all history of thought courses.
American participants also bemoaned plunging standards of literacy among
economics graduate students and colleagues as a consequence of the mathematics
fetish. The illiteracy problem is said to be particularly acute among new
economics PhDs, many of whom are incapable of reading with comprehension a page
of complex prose, such as one from The General Theory.
UNITED KINGDOM
The ideas expressed by the French students will have a familiar ring to readers
of Tony Lawson's Economics and Reality (1997). But in Lawson's UK
it is reported that economics students, although restless, are not yet
rebellious. Meanwhile it is rumoured that a French translation of Economics
and Reality is imminent.
BELGIUM
Interest in the reform campaign launched in France spread quickly to Belgium.
On June 24th under the heading "Economie autiste", the daily,
Le Soir, both reported on the events in France and offered its own analysis
of neoclassical economics as a quaint political ideology masquerading as science.
A week later Le Soir featured a lengthy article on the crisis in
economics. It draws on a recent report by Michel Vernières,
commissioned by the French government to investigate the teaching of
economics. Vernières emphasises that economic theories are devices for
conceptualizing reality. "Pedagogically, it is therefore essential to
articulate conceptual reflection and empirical investigation. . . . [and]
to underline the plurality of approaches and the overall coherence of
these approaches."
Bernard Paulré, referring especially to neoclassical theory, said that
mathematics is often used to hide "the emptiness of the propositions and
the absence of any concern for operational relevance." He said that
in addition to a-priori axioms, it is necessary for economics "to take
account of institutions, of history, of the strategies of actors and of groups,
of sociological dimensions, etc.."
This
newsletter aims to link people wishing to bring sanity, humanity and
science back to economics. To this end, YOU may help significantly by
forwarding this issue to 10 sympathetic colleagues and/or students.
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