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It is of interest to note that when thick studies on the history of
economics are done and come to the conclusion that there is a connection
between economics/economists and maintaining the political-economic status
quo such work is dismissed by most economists. And when some young
economist has the gumption to speak up and say, given the story told with
all its evidence, that seems reasonable to me, many economists say "oh I do
not know any economist who sold their intellectual soul to the status quo
and of course I would not do anything like that." But of course we know
many economists (and academics in general) who have done this--read for
example Ellen Schrecker, "No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the
Universities," David Montgomery et. al "The Cold War and the University,"
and Michael Bernstein, "A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose
in Twentieth Century America".
But how about particular examples that are well-known with documentation:
(1) much of the economics department at Berkeley bowing if not supporting
the California oath of allegiance and did not back one of their own
economists who being a good American (and also a social economists--read
not sufficiently a mainstream economist) objected to such an oath,
(2)Gardner Ackley and the University of Michigan economists "forcing" the
likes of Klein and two graduate students Edward Shaffer and Myron E. Sharpe
to leave because of past and/or current association/interest with/in the
Communist Party and/or Marxism, and (3) the Economics Department at the
University of Michigan putting pressure on Kenneth Boulding not to issue a
statement opposing military conscription during the Korean War.
Then there is the long run tendency by economists to restrict economics in
the academy to a broadly single body of theory that generally supports
capitalism. By this I mean the efforts to exclude initially Marxian
economic theory and later other forms of heterodoxy such as Post
Keynesian-Institutional economic theory from being taught to students and
being one part of "acceptable" economic discourse among economists because
of their alternative and less panegyric view markets and capitalism. This
historical story is well-known and documented, but how about more recent
examples--the Notre Dame story is a case at hand.
But something else--how about the progressive exclusion of heterodox
economics from economic departments in the UK? There is much evidence
showing that most if not all of the top ranked departments in the UK and
their economists do not on principle teach alternative economic theories to
their students, do not hire heterodox economists, and put pressure on their
faculty/staff to publish near exclusively in Diamond List-type journals.
Moreover, many of these departments have no or only a token heterodox
economist on staff--such as the LSE, Warwick, Exeter, Leicester,
Nottingham, Queen Mary, Southampton, York, Birmingham, Bristol, Durham,
Kent, Newcastle, Royal Holloway, Sussex, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews,
Swansea, Keele, Reading, Hull, and Loughborough.
But what does this have to do with the above story? One possible reading
of the Research Assessment Exercise is that it emerged from the
Conservative government attempts in the early 1980s to have higher
education serve their interests; and that the evolution of the RAE over the
past 20 years has co-opted disciplines, departments, and academics (which
implies many economists that we know) to do precisely that. This story is
still very incomplete but what if in 30 years a historian (after studying
all the evidence, taken oral statements and generally produced a thick
history) comes to the same conclusion? Would economists on this listserve
say that the historian has done a poor job? Just because thick histories
produce conclusions that many economists do not like does not mean they are
wrong. If the only possible outcome of explorations into the relationship
of economists, economic theory and the status quo is one in which
economists etc are not co-opted, then there is no need to do any of this
work in the first place. If historians of economics/economic thought
cannot accept or at least reflect upon disquieting conclusions from good
research without being defensive and/or dismissive then perhaps they should
chose a different area for their research activity.
Fred Lee
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