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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:22 2006 |
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===================== HES POSTING ====================
> Michael Williams wrote the following:
>
> "I have met so many bright and motivated students who felt that they
> were repeatedly required to 'pay their dues' again and again by not only
> mastering, but actually doing original work at the ever-expanding
> technical frontier of orthodox economic modelling, before being allowed
> to 'play the blues' and get down to serious theoretical criticism of
> orthodoxy. Too often the result is that they either quit economics in
> favour of another social science, or perhaps philosophy, or they put
> aside the critical enthusiams of their 'youth' and immerse themselves in
> orthodoxy's 'normal' science. Neither of these consequences can be
> good for the health of the discipline, I would suggest."
As a fairly new "motivated" graduate student interested in economics, I
am interested in the issues raised by Mr. (Prof?) Williams. In my
exposure thus far to "Neoclassical economics" I have found certain
issues and assumptions which I question. I also question numerous
issues and assumptions within "heterox" alternatives, with the possible
exception of Austrian. Unlike the "many bright and motivated students"
cited by Williams, I do not find it at all unreasonable that I am
expected to "master" (that is, demonstrate understanding of) orthodox
economic modeling before I have standing to criticize it. Toward that
end (the ultimate mastery) I am pursuing a Ph.D. in economics, as well
as the additional learning provided by subscribing to this and other
mailing lists, among other things. I am not overly concerned about
being forced into some hypothetical mold which (in an ongoing thread)
seems to escape specification.
Mike Robison
Michigan State University
Statistics/Economics
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