Economics teaching has become the Aeroflot of ideas

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":6.79,"text":"The writer teaches at Soas, University of London. His latest book is ‘Edible Economics’"}],[{"start":13.43,"text":"In the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis in three generations in 2007, economics students in the UK and elsewhere staged an uprising, demanding a fundamental reform of their curriculum. We had never been taught economic history or that markets could implode, they said. Why are we being told a fairy tale? "}],[{"start":36.76,"text":"Two decades on, the challenges facing humanity have multiplied and intensified — ecological crises, geopolitical clashes, deepening inequality and anti-democracy movements, to name just a few. But, shockingly, the curriculum being offered to incoming economics students this autumn remains the same.  "}],[{"start":59.25,"text":"Rethinking Economics, a group of activists that emerged from the post-crash student rebellion, recently took stock of the state of economics taught at UK universities in its curriculum health check. The findings are sobering. “The climate crisis and socio-ecological issues are broadly absent from economic curricula,” it found. Seventy-five per cent of universities “do not teach any ecological economics”. The report shows how the mainstream’s best-ranked universities often perform the worst in preparing students for the real world. We are training future economists to fail again."}],[{"start":98.28,"text":"The consequences of bad economics teaching do not stop at the university gates. They spill out into the world. They shape our policies, our pay cheques and our climate. Economics, as it has been practised for the past 40 years, has been harmful for many people. And yet, our world not only refuses to learn from this harm, but seems determined to repeat it all the way to economic and environmental destruction."}],[{"start":128.82,"text":"The dominance of neoclassical economics in our university curricula has created a world where we are told there is no alternative — only technical adjustments to a system that is fundamentally fair, rational and efficient. But this is fiction. Economics today resembles Catholic theology in medieval Europe: a rigid doctrine guarded by a modern priesthood who claim to possess the sole truth. Dissenters are shunned. Non-economists are told to “think like an economist” or not think at all. This is not education. It’s indoctrination."}],[{"start":167.35,"text":"When we allow only one school of thought to dominate, we all suffer the consequences. I look at economic theory as a buffet rather than a set menu and believe that fusion always creates better flavour than monoculture. "}],[{"start":183.6,"text":"Such monoculture wasn’t always the norm. Until the 1980s, economics was a vibrant, pluralist field, home to Marxist, Keynesian, Austrian, developmentalist and institutionalist schools. Since then, that diversity has evaporated."}],[{"start":201.34,"text":"Neoclassical economics has become the Aeroflot of ideas. A friend recalls that after asking for a vegetarian meal on a flight with the Soviet airline in the 1980s, he was told: “No, you cannot. Everybody’s equal on Aeroflot. It’s a socialist airline. There’s no special treatment.” The same logic applies in today’s economics departments: you’re free to choose — as long as it’s neoclassical chicken."}],[{"start":230.23000000000002,"text":"But real life is not one-size-fits-all. The complex challenges of our time require imaginative solutions, not endless variations on the failed theme of efficient markets. We need a more nuanced approach and to understand the economy not from a purely economic point of view, but also from political, social and psychological perspectives. Reforming economics curricula is not an academic distraction — it’s a societal imperative. "}],[{"start":260.27000000000004,"text":"We need to push for an economics education that is more pluralist, ethically aware, historically grounded and relevant to the real world. Rethinking Economics is among those leading this charge. It has trained successive generations to ask better questions and ventured beyond the university to challenge orthodoxy in government, banks and in the public imagination."}],[{"start":285.77000000000004,"text":"While we can expect further dismissals from the discipline’s high priests, we also know that they are on the defensive. The cracks are showing and the demand for change is growing. Even the staunchest defenders of orthodoxy will eventually have to listen. "}],[{"start":303.56000000000006,"text":"I remain an optimist. Two hundred years ago, buying and selling people was legal in many countries. A hundred years ago, women were jailed for demanding the right to vote. Progress never comes easily. You can’t simply hope that societies will evolve in the right direction. You have to fight to change them. "}],[{"start":324.59000000000003,"text":"The movement to reform the economics curriculum, however esoteric it may appear, is part of that fight."}],[{"start":339.43000000000006,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1753437655_3294.mp3"}