Occupy Econ 101
When a science is dying, disciples begin to refuse initiation.
This is what happened last Wednesday in the class of Harvard economics professor Gregory Mankiw, with these simple opening words: “Today, we are walking out of your class.”
The rejection of Mankiw’s class is only a single event in the class of one professor, and yet this refusal may prove to be an event with a much wider significance. Mankiw's econ 101 textbook, Principles of Economics, has made it into the minds of almost every economics student in the modern world and if the students of Mankiw can revolt, then it is possible that students everywhere can begin the task of rethinking the dysfunctional old neoclassical paradigm.
In response to the walk-out, Mankiw has only doubled down his orthodoxy, claiming that the 1% have suffered more than the 99% as a result of the recession. Now is the time for a global walk-out. Download a poster of the True Cost Economics Manifesto at kickitover.org and pin it up in the corridor of your department. Let's start an all out meme war against our neoclassical profs and begin the daunting task of ushering in a new bionomic, psychonomic, ecological economics paradigm.
Now is a good time to begin an escalation and turn the whole world into a grand economics department … to occupy it.
Send pics of what's happening at your campus to [email protected]
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
Update: Check out the video of students walking out of Professor N. Gregory Mankiw's Economics 10 class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKS1jZxWLPM
212 comments on the article “Occupy Econ 101”
Displaying 41 - 50 of 212
Page 5 of 22
Barry G.
Are you by any chance American? Because you sound like an idiot.
Let me guess, you work for some "think tank" who got a contract to peruse chatboards and leave messages like this?
How much do they pay to just leave dumb comments?
Do you make $80k+?
Sounds like a fun job.
Barry G.
Are you by any chance American? Because you sound like an idiot.
Let me guess, you work for some "think tank" who got a contract to peruse chatboards and leave messages like this?
How much do they pay to just leave dumb comments?
Do you make $80k+?
Sounds like a fun job.
ChicagoJohn
Harvard isn't cheap.
The students attending his class were not exactly on the lower end of the economic scale... nor were they the ones who would graduate and not get hired. Getting a degree from Harvard (whether or not I agree with it) vastly increases your chances of getting a great job.
The students who are jumping out of his class in protest are screwing themselves. They might relish the thought that they are 'taking it to the man', but in reality, hundreds of other students will line up to take classes there. Because they know that it will increase their income potential.
ChicagoJohn
Harvard isn't cheap.
The students attending his class were not exactly on the lower end of the economic scale... nor were they the ones who would graduate and not get hired. Getting a degree from Harvard (whether or not I agree with it) vastly increases your chances of getting a great job.
The students who are jumping out of his class in protest are screwing themselves. They might relish the thought that they are 'taking it to the man', but in reality, hundreds of other students will line up to take classes there. Because they know that it will increase their income potential.
Anonymous
Their monied parents would be proud of them.
Because the students are learning how to bend and break the rules using their collective clout and power in order to get ahead in the world; just like the financial elite does. Use your power to change rules you don't like.
So I say to the students / future financial architects: when you get to the top, make sure you act like dicks to everyone you subverted to get there, by the media to distort perceptions to win over hearts and mind of the critical-thinking-disabled, status quotarians!
Anonymous
Their monied parents would be proud of them.
Because the students are learning how to bend and break the rules using their collective clout and power in order to get ahead in the world; just like the financial elite does. Use your power to change rules you don't like.
So I say to the students / future financial architects: when you get to the top, make sure you act like dicks to everyone you subverted to get there, by the media to distort perceptions to win over hearts and mind of the critical-thinking-disabled, status quotarians!
ChicagoJohn
Their monied parents would be proud of them for leaving an economics class???
You can't learn how to bend or break the rules without first -learning- the rules. Otherwise, you're just doing what you want, without any knowledge of what outcome it might have positive or negative. (Which is the core of all selfishness)
There is nothing about using clout and power about walking out of a class. The instructor is still getting paid. If anything, the students are losing the intrinsic value of their investment by missing out on the exact thing that they paid for. Its kinda like buying food at a restaurant, paying the bill, and then leaving without having eaten it... and then thinking that you've affected change.
Of course, you -could- argue that they aren't actually being affected because its the parents who are paying for it. But that would just re-enforce the selfish nature of the students.
So what, exactly, did they change by leaving the class? Outside of, you know, making it easier for the instructor to take an early lunch and maybe get in a tennis game?
ChicagoJohn
Their monied parents would be proud of them for leaving an economics class???
You can't learn how to bend or break the rules without first -learning- the rules. Otherwise, you're just doing what you want, without any knowledge of what outcome it might have positive or negative. (Which is the core of all selfishness)
There is nothing about using clout and power about walking out of a class. The instructor is still getting paid. If anything, the students are losing the intrinsic value of their investment by missing out on the exact thing that they paid for. Its kinda like buying food at a restaurant, paying the bill, and then leaving without having eaten it... and then thinking that you've affected change.
Of course, you -could- argue that they aren't actually being affected because its the parents who are paying for it. But that would just re-enforce the selfish nature of the students.
So what, exactly, did they change by leaving the class? Outside of, you know, making it easier for the instructor to take an early lunch and maybe get in a tennis game?
Anonymous
Science News published an exhaustive study some years ago concluding that bookies have a higher average of correct predictions than economists.
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In economics, the majority is always wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Anonymous
Science News published an exhaustive study some years ago concluding that bookies have a higher average of correct predictions than economists.
In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
People who are in a fortunate position always attribute virtue to what makes them so happy.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith
In economics, the majority is always wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Pages
Add a new comment