thoughts on the department talk

On Tuesday:

A lot of what was said had to do with the events leading up to the package deal in the spring of 1973. Some things were said about what happened immediately afterward: the battles fought between the faculty and the grad students, for instance. However, almost nothing was said about the state of radical economics or the department in the 1980s. A few things were said about the 90s, and of course Sam and Steve gave their thoughts on the current state of radical economics and where it might go in the future. While I do have some issues with what some people said about the present and future, I was more interested in the past: specifically, what happened in those early years of the department that led, so quickly, to things changing?

In our digging up of EGSO records over the summer, we came across a variety of memos and minutes beginning in the late 1970s. These were really helpful in constructing a memory of some of the debates which occurred (such as the controversy over the Affirmative Action committee). But they also painted a picture of EGSO's thoughts on their situation as graduate students in this unique department. Their views on TA allocation, funding issues, and other matters of cogovernance are strikingly similar to the views expressed by EGSO today on the same or similar issues. Their views on the changing direction of the department can also be captured in these documents. Indeed, as early as 1983 when students expressed concern over the change in curriculum they noted the changing direction of certain professors' work in the department, towards more mainstream ideas and techniques.

What I find so interesting about this early look at the orientation of the department is how quickly things changed. It makes me wonder, what was the lifespan of this radical movement in economics, both here and in the profession as a whole? If these economists really were riding a wave of social movements, when that wave died did the movement die with it?

This is the reason why I ask: does it really make sense to talk about "the history of radical economics and a radical department, 1973-present" or is it more like "the history of radical economics and a radical department, 1973-79" or some proximate date? The framing of the study, I believe, is essential to understanding both the nature of a radical department and what we can do today to change things for the better. Why? Here is my point: because if radicalism more or less lost steam after this early period (the "to 1979" scenario) then we must look at what things were like at that time, and try our best to go back to that time. Otherwise, in the "to present" scenario, we are left wondering whether radical economics is a simple skirting of the mainstream by people who mostly ask alternative and slightly more interesting questions without relying entirely on neoclassical tools to answer them.

My personal thoughts on the issue are that radicalism was most likely a punctuated event in the history of economic thought in the U.S. I have very few doubts that things were quite different in UMass econ by the mid-1980s and probably even earlier. The question is then, what are the reasons for this change? Like most questions in history, there are both agency and social institutions dimensions to the story, related through some notion of dialectics which I won't go into too much :) I will briefly sketch out what I see as some of the main factors.

1. Sam plays a central role in this history because he was the organizer of the group of professors who were hired in the spring of 1973. Before coming to UMass he researched other attempts at radical institutions that had ultimately dissolved. While he was hesitant at first to share the lessons he learned in studying these departments, later on he admitted that lack of group cohesion was a central element to all of the failure stories. While the initial pact amongst the five did exist, Sam turned towards a different set of questions and ideas in the 1980s which dealt less with critiquing capitalism and more with studying topics that were excluded by neoclassicals at that time, and criticizing the neoclassical theory. He admits this himself.

In fact, by moving more in the direction of Hayek (criticizing the Walrasian model) than, say, Rawls (providing moral critiques of capitalism), Sam had not only given up on the intellectual challenge posed by the construction of a post-capitalist society but he also became increasingly engaged with the academic aspect of his research program. (Find a previous post here on where I see the relationship between radical academics and society.)

2. The problems facing the world in the 1970s when some economists got interested in radical ideas were monumental: global inequality, imperialism, and at the same time a fear of Marxist ideas as "dangerous and subversive." This is definitely a volatile point in global history in terms of what was being talked about and the severity with which people held oppositional views. The 1980s, in contrast, were a period of social conservatism, government crackdown of unions, and the beginning of an era characterized by leftist economists as "neoliberalism." Given that to at least some extent social movements informed these radical economists, you can possibly make an argument that it works in the other direction as well: specifically, that this period gave new theoretical strength to the fundamental neoclassical doctrines of competitive markets and little government intervention.

What does this mean for an understanding of radical economics and what radical economists can do about it? First, as Jim Crotty pointed out near the end, the social problems (partly outlined in -2-)which they confronted in the 1970s are no bigger than the problems radical economists face today. The conditions exist for radical economists to criticize capitalism and face the greater intellectual challenge of constructing an alternative, so what radical economics had in the 1970s is similar to (if not less important than) what radical economists have today.

Second, so much of this is about individual choices, and that is something I find both amazingly beautiful and powerful but also very dangerous. Here, I believe all we can do is trust in education and fruitful debate. In fact, lots of debate -- open communication is absolutely central. And, it might be necessary to make some pacts at times :) but we should not view them as necessary evils but as opportunities for cooperation.

Finally, I would strongly differ with Sam concerning open engagement with the top of the mainstream. There is no a priori reason to do this, and in fact it may compromise our position by fetishizing the elite, which is directly contrary to radical principles.

what does a radical economics department look like?

Tomorrow, my department (UMass Amherst Economics) is hosting a workshop on its history and the history of radical economics in the U.S. more generally. I'm very excited about this talk for a number of reasons. First, the speakers for the workshop were some of the leaders of this movement in the 70s. Second, the place of radical economics in the history of economic thought is quite an interesting one. Let me briefly explain why.

Even though they are often identified this way in the media, I don't usually think of academics as the most radical force in society. Consider the social sciences. Often, the dominant theories of social sciences reflect the prevailing social consensus. So, neoclassical economics is more popular in society than heterodox economics at least partly because neoclassical economics affirms the dominant economic order. In other words, neoclassical economics provides theoretical justifications for capitalism. While I don't know as much about sociology or psychology, etc., I think the situation there is similar. Even some academics who teach radical ideas in their classes hold conservative views about the academy and society.

I think this blurring of what radicalism means to academics is fairly demonstrated above ... at least it's enough to drive my main point that to think about a truly radical department or academic tradition means challenging the boundaries between the academy and society. It is of utmost importance to keep this in mind when discussing the radical tradition of the econ department here. Why? Because UMass Econ imported radical economists in the early 1970s, economists riding on a wave of social demonstrations such as the civil rights movement and workers' strikes. These same economists turned in the early-to-mid-1980s toward answering radical questions using neoclassical techniques (see work by Sam Bowles and Herbert Gintis for two examples). Radicalism in the department slowly died, and now (in 2009) radical economics has nothing of the attention it received in the 1970s, when mainstream journals such as the American Economic Review were publishing work by these radical economists.

Why do I think it's so important to frame the story in this way? Because it gets away from the tendency some people have of saying "the field of economics is quickly changing, we need to identify those changes and keep with that current if we are to establish ourselves as a premier heterodox institution." People making this argument are operating under a severely flawed impression of the relationship between the academy and society and what it truly means to be a progressive institution of higher education. The "dominant" field of economics is swayed by the slow tectonic shifts of orthodoxy. Attaching oneself to that in the hope for radical change is intellectual complacency, and downright conservative at worst.

Of course, I'm no radical myself, I want to get a PhD for my own reasons. These are simply my thoughts on the state of radicalism in economics and the reason for why I'm so interested in tomorrow's talk.

Should we attack the principles of the institution of academia, or our view of academia as an institution?

A recent New York Times Op-Ed by Marc Taylor criticized higher education, especially graduate programs:

"End the University as We Know It"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?_r=1

This article attracted a lot of attention, and one piece looked at exactly from whom it attracted attention (mostly academics, she points out):

http://www.good.is/post/the-grad-school-brain-drain/

I am taking up Anne Trubeck's call in this piece for a more engaging discussion from people "excited about the exchange of ideas" to mention a few things.

I, too, am unsatisfied with the bulk of graduate-level research, since it normally leads to what I like to call a "cornering" of oneself: as you become increasingly specialized in your field, you trap yourself in an ever-tighter corner in the sense that you can intelligibly converse about your research with an increasingly smaller group of people. This happens in a lot of different fields, including economics and definitely math, from my personal experiences in these two fields. Thus, one of Taylor's main policy proposals is interdisciplinary work in order to expand the scope of academic work.

For Taylor, the question is whether such work needs to be regulated or if the market for research responds to incentives for these "problem task forces" quicker. I have several problems with his call for regulation. There is already a lot of interdisciplinary work, and as society demonstrates a need for some area of research the funding usually springs up for it. In addition, lists that people give of "important" areas are completely arbitrary since there are so many pressing matters that should be on researchers' agendas, and because we never know when the next problem will come to our attention.

On a somewhat related note, since the education market is characterized by positive externalities, we are already underproducing -- that's given and is no insight which Taylor can call his own.

Considering an alternative explanation for Taylor's problem

If we argue that we must restructure the system of academia, we're saying there is something wrong with the institution as it is currently designed -- which, incidentally, is based on principles that are very old and have produced much benefit to society. I'm no conservative, socially or politically or economically, but I'm also no radical anarchist who believes that the institution of higher ed needs to be brought down -- I'm in the academy for many reasons.

On the other hand, if we argue that we must consider how society views academia and its perceived "benefits", we challenge the current paradigm surrounding higher ed. This is the route that I take in the following analysis.

1st point: considering different institutions of knowledge production

One of the most fruitful paths I think we can explore in order to reform our views of education is to see the university as one of several institutions of "production of knowledge" in society. If we restrict ourselves to the view that knowledge is produced within the ivory tower and then disseminated throughout society to those not cerebral enough to contribute but only to utilize, then we have created several artificial barriers in education that limit the effects of the university itself. Consider an example of the limiting effects of the university. Without an arrow from the real world to the ivory tower, theories will appear largely uninformed of reality and will lose their potency as powerful explanatory tools. This then weakens theory, and if there are then attempts to use those theories in real life, exposes further weaknesses, etc. In other words, there are institutions within the real world itself which can generate knowledge production and thus strengthen the effectiveness of old theories and create new theories (without the help of some professor!).

If we take steps to solve this problem, then we get rid of Taylor's concern for lack of interdisciplinary work: with ivory tower theories constantly informed by reality we transform the nature of those theories and therefore the "toolkit" needed to solve the problems, requiring analysis from a wider range of fields.

Also, by considering the university as one of many institutions of knowledge production, we give it competition from other sources of knowledge production in society, including private research, all the different resources on the internet, even the workplace. A lot of experience- and on-the-job-types of training are already an important part of some jobs, and they lessen the need for standard university-produced education.

2nd (stronger?) point: considering how society views higher education

There is an important point here. Higher education -- bachelor's, master's, law, MBA, PhD, etc. -- is increasingly being seen as compulsory in our society. It leads to people spending many years accruing debt to gain an education which has nothing to do with the job they go on to afterwards. In a sense, it is "overeducation": we press upon our young adults a need for more degrees to a, well, unnecessary degree because we feel it is almost a "right" for every high school graduate to be able to go to college.

This is not an elitist call for the purging of universities. The point I am making is, as a society that values education for our children, we are pushing the need for education onto those who may not be interested in getting a degree in the first place. (As an aside, this point is not to imply that those people will have any less "value" in society for not spending 4 years at college. I purposely never mentioned anything about the value of certain jobs over others in the above discussion because I do not think it is very fruitful to judge various jobs in society on whether they are more "valuable" -- for example, whether some professor's work is more valuable to society than what a carpenter does.)

Of course, Taylor is talking about graduate school, but it all boils down to this same principle: not only in the sense that: "the MA is the new BA", and maybe soon: "the PhD is the new MA", but also in the sense that as more people go to college, well, someone needs to teach them. This creates jobs for the graduate students since they are cheaper to hire than full professors, so the whole mindset reproduces itself: more undergrads creates more demand for graduate students, this pushes in more undergrads as society increases its standards of what it means to be more "educated" (hah), and so on.

Synthesizing points 1,2: implications

The implications of this analysis are the following: Taylor's argument addresses the institution of higher education instead of how society views the institution of higher education. The latter, I argue, is more to the point for a few reasons: 1. we place too much emphasis on kids getting their BA, Master's, etc. before they are allowed to go out into the real world and be productive to society; 2. if we view the university as one of many institutions of knowledge production (and, god forbid! not the most important one!) including the workplace itself and also the internet (having message boards and group discussions and email listserves) then we should consider how we allocate time and resources, and not the university itself.

Bottom line: should we attack the principles of academia, or our own understanding of academia?

The principles of academia have been tried and tested for millenia. They are a tradition which has produced some outstanding results over the course of human history. On the other hand, our own understanding of academia, of education, is constantly on the move. Perhaps we've veered a bit off track and it's time to regain our position on the course. That is what I am arguing for.