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www.paecon.net
De Morgen
Brussels
2
March 2002
‘Economics basic propositions unrealistic’
‘Post-autists’ attack economic
sacred cows
Modern-day, neoclassical
economy has become detached from reality and too much focused on itself. It
is, in short: autistic. That is the opinion of the counter-movement of
post-autistic economists, who are getting more and more support.
Brussels
Johan Vandaele
(translated by Jeroen Vanstiphout)
It started, as often, with
a group of French students. In June 2000 they distributed a petition on the
internet in which they harshly criticised existing economics courses and
called for a different kind of economics education. The group believed (and
believes) that the economics courses are too far removed from reality, use
mathematical models as an end to themselves instead of as a means to an end,
and are far from pluralistic. The students experience contemporary economics
as ‘autistic’, detached from reality and aimed at itself. “We want a
pluralism of approaches, that is adapted to the uncertainties that
characterize most big questions of our time, like unemployment, inequality,
the role of financial markets, free trade, globalisation and economic
development.” What the students want, is, in short, ‘post-autistic
economics’.
The appeal must have been
responding to a real need – in France and elsewhere – because fairly quickly
a movement started to grow. Le Monde paid attention to the petition
and a real public debate started. Then the French minister of Education Jack
Lang had the problem investigated by a commission led by the famous economist
Jean-Paul Fitoussi. Less than a year later, the commission recognised the
problems and made suggestions for a more pluralistic economics education.
The Anglo-Saxon world began
to find their feet too. Already in September 2000 in England an electronic
Post-autistic Economics Newsletter was started. The second edition found
readers in 36 countries; nowadays the Post-Autistic Economic review has 5.000
(non-paying) subscribers in a hundred countries.
A counter-reaction from the
neoclassical side failed to halt the movement. On the contrary: 200 French
economists signed the student petition and in November 2000 a website was
launched (www.paecon.net).
Early in 2001 James
Galbraith (son of) met the French leaders of the post-autistic economists in
Paris, a sign that a worldwide movement was growing with offshoots in every
continent. In June 2001 a group of Cambridge students sent off a petition,
that has meanwhile gathered some 600 signatures, and in August 2001
economists in Kansas City wrote an open letter that convinced 300 collegues.
Every time the same desire returns: don’t pigeonhole economics but tie it to
other social disciplines, situate it in an historical-philosophical framework
and aim it at the challenges the world faces these days.
Up until now three
economists who work in Belgium have signed the Cambridge petition. Bert
Mosselmans, post-doctoral researcher at the university of Antwerp, is one of
them. “I oppose the one-sidedness that governs now: what is not neoclassical
or econometric, is marginalized. Subjects like the history of economic
thought get pushed into a tight corner. Putting our own models in perspective
happens less frequently.”
Mosselmans doesn’t see any
political motive behind all this. “It’s a self-reinforcing phenomenon:
economists conduct the kind of quantitative and mainstream research that will
get them published in top-class reviews. If they succeed, they will continue
on that same road.”
Professor Robert Scott
Gassler, who lectures at the Free University of Brussels and has signed the
Cambridge petition too, does see a clear political connection: “Neoclassical
economics is based on basic presumptions that are narrow and unrealistic. Like,
for instance, that a rational human being is automatically egocentric, and
doesn’t care about the community or others. Students are taught this, but it
simply isn’t right. In that sense, mainstream economics does have an
ideological content. It’s clear: a certain right-wing view has taken over the
whole branch.” So Gassler sees the rise of post-autistic economics as a
reaction against neoliberalism and as favourable to antiglobalism*.
Post-autists believe the economy hasn’t seen such pressure to change since
the 30’s. Gassler thinks so too: “We have seen other reactions to the
neoclassical model in the past, but now different movements, post-Keynesians,
institutionalists, feminist economists, are coming together – and this will
make this countercurrent stronger”.
Picture:
a beggar in New York. Contemporary economics is heedless to the problem of
inequality in the world, the post-autists say.
(*) Note: John
Vandaele uses the word ‘andersglobalisten’ here (literally: ‘different
globalists’), which is a term people from the movement itself suggested to
oppose the negative qualification given (basically by the mainstream press)
to the word ‘anti-globalists’. This way they want to emphasise they
aren’t necessarily against globalisation in itself (which can have different
meanings) and stress the fact that they do have alternatives to the
neoliberal, capitalist kind of globalisation the world is subjected to. (JV)
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