Thursday, November 03, 2011

Unoccupy Econ

An Open Letter to Greg Mankiw:
"Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society.

As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today."
If you read the letter you'll see Mankiw is being criticized for not including Keynes in this course. However, this semester of the course is apparently covering microeconomics, and Keynes will be discussed, where he should be, next semester in macroeconomics. Seems sad, don't you think, that these students are several weeks into the semester and they don't yet understand the difference between micro and macro?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Open letter to Mankiw's ungrateful Ec 10 students:

If the privilege of taking a course with one of the best known economists in America is all that bad, please give up your seat to someone else. Not being one to gripe about such a great opportunity, I'd gladly hop on the red line and take your place.