4 - Reclaiming Economies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2022
Summary
On 2 November 2011 about 70 students walked out of Economics 10, Harvard University's introductory economics class taught by Gregory Mankiw. The students, who were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that had begun in New York's Zucotti Park two months earlier, published their reasons for the walk-out in an open letter to Mankiw. They wrote that: ‘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’. The letter went on to question Mankiw's class for its teaching of conservative economic theories and for an overreliance on his own macroeconomic textbook. Principles of Economics has sold over one million copies since its first publication in 1997; according to the Open Syllabus Project, Mankiw is the most frequently cited author on college economics course syllabi. He is therefore an authoritative source for many economics students, some of whom are beginning to question his teachings and the orthodox economics they underpin.
This chapter is not about teaching economics students per se, as it considers how teaching about economic alternatives can help social science students to better address challenges resulting from economic inequality. It nevertheless takes its inspiration from the activism of economics students described here, who, through protests, creative interventions and global student associations, are demanding that economics courses embrace more theoretical and methodological diversity and include the perspectives of feminist and Global South scholars. Because ‘economics is the mother tongue of public policy, and the tool used to tackle global poverty and manage our planetary home’ (Raworth, 2017, p 217), such diversity is important not only for theoretical reasons.
Economic thinking occupies a central place in interventions to global challenges, both mainstream and alternative, because ‘the task of reclaiming and reshaping our economies is central to any project of societal transformation’ (St Martin et al, 2015, p 1).
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- Creative UniversitiesRe-imagining Education for Global Challenges and Alternative Futures, pp. 79 - 101Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021