That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
This is beyond all parody:
The following letter was sent to Greg Mankiw by the organizers of today’s Economics 10 walkout.
Wednesday November 2, 2011
Dear Professor 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.
A legitimate academic study of economics must include a critical discussion of both the benefits and flaws of different economic simplifying models. As your class does not include primary sources and rarely features articles from academic journals, we have very little access to alternative approaches to economics. There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory. ...
We are walking out today to join a Boston-wide march protesting the corporatization of higher education as part of the global Occupy movement. Since the biased nature of Economics 10 contributes to and symbolizes the increasing economic inequality in America, we are walking out of your class today both to protest your inadequate discussion of basic economic theory and to lend our support to a movement that is changing American discourse on economic injustice. Professor Mankiw, we ask that you take our concerns and our walk-out seriously.
Sincerely,
Concerned students of Economics 10
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Comments:
Nov '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
A little knowledge truly is a dangerous thing... self-absorbed little miscreants. We used Dr. Mankiw's macro text book in a class I took some years ago. I found it expounded the basics of Keynesianism, monetarism, and neo-classical economics very well and fairly. We could speculate that perhaps young people who found themselves with fewer prospects might, in the end, prove more persuadable. This episode seems to suggest the opposite. Unfortunate. When they look around them at the wreckage in a few years, they'll lament "we didn't mean this". We will, of course, be there to say "yes Cupcake, this is exactly what you meant, you just didn't care to learn enough to get out of your own and our way (and to bring it full circle).. self-absorbed little miscreants".
May '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Where's Thomas Sowell when you need him?
Jun '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
The number "3" is a racist construct designed to subordinate indigenous peoples. Henceforth, the correct answer to any math problem will be one, two, or many.
Jun '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I guess it isn't until Economics 11 that they learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Gosh it must be nice to be able to go to a $60,000 a year school on your wealthy parents' dime, and then, instead of having your a** in a seat in the classroom, walk out to show your solidarity with the "people," most of whom you wouldn't socialize with if your life depended on it.
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
The Fall Semester of Ec 10 is microeconomics. The Spring semester is macro. That might go a long way to explaining why Keynes hasn't quite gotten the prominence the students feel he deserves.
Jun '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Maybe Mankiw should have taught this course to W.
Pseudodionysius: Well, its clear after reading Greg Mankiw's entire article and his bio, that this is all George Bush's fault.
Nov 3 at 7:58am
Aug '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
It's very silly. I've heard podcast with Mr. Mankiw and I've used his books in my econ classes and the books are fair in his treatment of the subject matter.
But even if he weren't a fair teacher--so what? It's his class, "academic freedom and such." And I thought we were supposed to be "open minded."
In any case, walking out of the econ class in huff, saying that his teaching is the problem is funny. And then to ask for him to "take this seriously" is a joke. They don't sound like Harvard students, they sound like 3 year olds.
Mr Mankiw should teach that day and give a pop-quiz.
Mar '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Isn't this like the yahoos who demand that creationism be taught in the schools?
May '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I hope somebody records the next lecture where he gives these children and intellectual spanking.
May '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Hey, don't knock it til you've considered the benefits.
My last econ class was at Eastern Michigan University (years ago), and I thought the instructor was extremely balanced. I struggled to decide if he was a quiet conservative, or if what I was hearing was simply the absence of any definite left agenda. We conservatives are so used to the same ol' line, it's a bit of a shock when it is absent. It's like the weirdly painful moment of silence when your roommate's stereo has been blasting at 120 dB and you pull the plug.
Oct '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Reading the Crimson article, it seems the students were most annoyed with discussion of the minimum wage. It is a rather standard tenet of microeconomics across the spectrum that a high minimum wage increases unemployment. In the context of Harvard this is especially bitter as there was a large occupy movement 10 years ago over the concept of a "living wage". Students occupied the main administration building for several weeks I believe, and this spread to a tent city on Harvard yard. All this was in order to compel the university to pay lower end workers a much higher wage. I remember going to a documentary incognito made by the leaders of this movement at Harvard. The profusion of Marxists there and the whole movement was the first thing that I thought of once OWS started.
Aug '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I wonder which of the Critical Studies professors wrote this letter for these Harvard undergraduates. There are so many of the iconic critical studies phrases in this document that it was either written by a CS professor, or by a student in CS classes who wrote the letter as a project.
Aug '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I'd like to add that the fact that every one of these OWS "sympathy" protests having a "Mic Check" and a "General Assembly" structure smacks of massive organizing and not spontaneous action.
Never mind that both of these -- and there emphasis on "consensus" -- use bullying practices rather than more deliberative democratic practices to achieve their ends. When one considers the boon that the Australian ballot was to American democracy, as a secret ballot, one can hardly praise "shout down" consensus deliberation.
Sep '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Is it catty for me to point out that The New Criterion had an article awhile ago comparing Columbia and Harvard? While no longer Barzunesque, Columbia still has a core, Harvard long ago dumped their core (cue Harvey Mansfield), so the ninnies at Harvard would have to go to Columbia to get a few more alternatives.
Heh.
Or, they could go to Harvey Mansfield and complain. He might give them an ironic grade.
Sep '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I was wondering this myself.
My intro micro course at U of Wisconsin used the Mankiw text. I didn't find anything particularly political or controversial about it.
From what I remember, the content of intro macro was far more qualitative, and subjective.
Aug '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
By definition, everything you write is catty.
Apr '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Although some people have referred to it, I don't think I've seen the detailed summary of the classes and assigned papers linked. It's brilliant. http://hpronline.org/campus/in-defense-of-ec-10/
Aug '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
I was just going to link that, too. Interesting read.
Dec '10
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Claire Berlinski, Ed.: ...
Clearly the only students Professor Mankiw should take seriously are the ones still warming the seats in his lecture hall. The others are useful idiots.
Feb '11
Re: That Higher Education Bubble is About to Burst
Wow. Idiots obtain admission to Harvard. Hilarity ensues.
The really sad thing about this is that these clowns will most likely graduate Harvard, idiocy intact, and move on into the power structure of American society.
So they will take their affinity for so-called "environmental sciences" and marxist "public policy" into the government and spend their careers wrecking the actual economy and making the country poorer. Which, as wealthy members of the elite, will never touch them.
Or so they think. Brokest nation in history, we are. There isn't much margin for idiocy left. It won't end well, even if you are rich and foolish enough to walk out of a class at Harvard because you think you know more than the professor.