Currents in the Contemporary Economics
"Modern economics is sick. Economics has increasingly become an intellectual game played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences for understanding the economic world. Economists have converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigour is everything and practical relevance is nothing." observed Mark Blaug (see Blaug, M. (1997) "Ugly Currents in Modern Economics", Options Politiques, 18(17): 3-8). Read the Open Letter from economics students (in Ecole Normale Supérieure, France, 2000) to professors and others responsible for the teaching of Economics:
We, economics students of the world, declare ourselves to be generally dissatisfied with the teaching that we receive. This is so for the following reasons:
- We wish to escape from imaginary worlds!
- We oppose the uncontrolled use of mathematics!
- We are for a pluralism of approaches in economics!
- Call to teachers: wake up before it is too late!
Major newspapers and magazines gave extensive coverage to the students' struggle against the "autistic science". Economics students from all over France rushed to sign the petition. Meanwhile a growing number of French economists dared to speak out in support and even to launch a parallel petition of their own. Finally the French government stepped in. The Minister of Education set up a high level commission to investigate the students' complaints. The French reaction to economics - teaching, practice and ethics thereof - which was against the autistic economics meaning Establishment Economics, mainly based on the Neo-Classical doctrines - soon spread into UK (Cambridge) and USA (Cansas and Harvard). (see A Brief History of the Post-Autistic Economics Movement; also see Revolutionizing French Economics).
The economists doing Post-Autistic Economics are the most modern among the economists. They reject Neo-Classicism altogether. Their main ideas are spread through the following:
| The Post-Autistic Economists | |
| James K. Galbraith | Frank Ackerman |
| Tony Lawson | Geoffrey Hodgson |
| Julie A. Nelson | Ha-Joon Chang |
| Jean Gadrey | Peter Dorman |
Many economists are working in various branches, classified by the IDEAS (RePEc) in different fields. Field-wise authors' list (with links to their papers/works) is available at IDEAS.