Monday, December 04, 2006

Academic Indoctrination: Does intro Econ push students to the right?

This article raises the question as to whether the way economics is taught today is inherently biased. The economic model of the Chicago school emphasizes efficiency over fairness. Survey courses teach students that this is the highest value and should triumph over any other thoughts.

This debate has been all over the blogosphere for a while now, and generally asks whether economics has become ideologically driven. Should one accept this model as the best for society?

Practically, the free-market model is being rejected all over the world--yesterday's resounding reelection of Hugo Chavez demonstrates that.

In the academy, is economics our answer to those right-wing critics. Every student gets their free-market propaganda in Econ 101? Does it balance out the claimed biases in English or History?

1 comment:

Lake Winneblogo said...

Thanks, S.B. I was hoping to get some student input, being that I have never taken econ on this campus.

My Econ 101 was a glorification of free-market economics, with nary a discussion of how the models might fail.

I don't know what the department here is like.