Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics

New York Times ^ | January 27, 2006 | LOUIS UCHITELLE

[Jeff Chandler]

What percentage of students are doing this?

[nmh]

"We have lost our optimism that the tools of economics can be used to manage the economy," Mr. Levitt said, "and we have moved to a much more micro view of the world. We can tell you whether labor unions raise productivity or stifle innovation or raise wages, but we are reluctant to judge whether the tradeoffs are good or bad."

yes, yes ... everything is relative. No proper judgement calls - that would spoil this LIBERALtarian utopia that will never be.

[HamiltonJay]

They are telling you what the options are, but not which option to choose."

Wow... imagine that, giving options based on input, but allowing folks to make their own conclusions without dictating them to them.... What a concept... run in fear!! Run in fear!

[libertarianPA]

If this actually becomes the norm, socialism and liberalism will die out in the realm of public debate. You can't introduce the illogical into a logical debate, after all.

[WOSG]

"We have lost our optimism that the tools of economics can be used to manage the economy,"

GOOD! It was the misplaced 'optimism' of social engineers that created socialist hell-holes in the first place.

Free enterprise is the best way to prosperity.

[Toddsterpatriot]

We can tell you whether labor unions raise productivity or stifle innovation or raise wages, but we are reluctant to judge whether the tradeoffs are good or bad."

labor unions raise productivity No
stifle innovation Yes
raise wages Temporarily
but we are reluctant to judge whether the tradeoffs are good or bad

You don't need to be a U of C professor to see the tradeoffs are bad.

[Sofa King]

...meanwhile, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" is still right.

What was it that Ronald Reagan said? "An economist is someone who sees something in practice and asks, 'I wonder if that would work in theory?'"

[Carling]

Freakonomics is a very un-PC book. It was quite interesting. The Bill Bennett flap over abortions and their impact on crime was the result of him refering to a chapter from this book.

[earplug]

Imagine economic freedom. Freedom of choice, all caused by rational thought fed objective data. Cool.

[twigs]

How much of this emphasis is because postmodern intellectuals are moving away from "metanarratives," universal or general theories, because they do not believe in "truth" outside of a specific context?

[nmh]

"...meanwhile, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" is still right. "

They'd ALL avoid that book like contagious leprosy!!!

[ndt]

"You can't introduce the illogical into a logical debate, after all."

I'm not so sure about that, happens here all the time.

[voletti]

"We have lost our optimism that the tools of economics can be used to manage the economy,"

How many remmeber the verbal abuse, the condesencion, the opprobrium heaped on a great man Milton Friedman ini the late 60s and early 70s? The man whose work and theories was dismissed as ridiculuous bny the reigning orthodoxy then (the keynsians)0 is today the establishment voice! And I'm sure, he would suport a trend where political spectacles are taken out of cold factual analysis.

[kalee]

ping

[longtermmemmory]

NYT spin.
Desperate to try and find an opening for communism in eccomic studies.

Communism in eccomomics has about as much validity as the tooth fairy in brain surgery.

[Terpfen]

Probably every student taking an economics course.

Two years ago, I took Microeconomics and Macroeconomics courses. They were pretty exclusively presentations of formulae and the reasoning behind those formulae. No discussions of capitalism versus communism. I would've preferred that: memorizing formula after formula got boring, fast.

[kevkrom]

No proper judgement calls - that would spoil this LIBERALtarian utopia that will never be.

Actually, this is a good trend... just provide the facts, and let people make their own judgements based on them, rather than coming up with grand theories to match the facts (or, what happens more often, come up with facts that match the theories).

[A. Pole]

Instead, they cast economics as a scientific inquiry, using mathematical models, for example, to explore the economy without becoming advocates for one solution or another.

Economics is not a natural science. It is something closer to psychology, history or sociology. It is about what people do, what they think/believe/imagine, what they desire etc ...

Trying to reduce human beings to fake physical formulas is silly and pretentious.

[A. Pole]

labor unions [...] stifle innovation Yes

Cheap labor stifles innovation: proved by the long history of ancient Egypt and other serf/slave based societies.

USA was the world leader in innovations at the time when the trade unions were the strongest.