Wanted: Worldly Philosophers
Economists should see the big picture – and ask the big questions. But in a recent oped piece, Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman argue that the profession has been so preoccupied with the trees that it lost sight of the forest:
It’s become commonplace to criticize the ‘Occupy’ movement for failing to offer an alternative vision. But the thousands of activists in the streets of New York and London aren’t the only ones lacking perspective: economists, to whom we might expect to turn for such vision, have long since given up thinking in terms of economic systems — and we are all the worse for it.
Read their piece here.
Authority Figures
From Jody, November 25, 2011:
I love your website. Thanks so much for making this possible. One small comment is it that I think it would help your argument to include the titles for the individuals involved. You are building an argument that will benefit from either ‘Dr.’ at the front or ‘PhD’ at the end.
Econ4 replies:
Thanks, Jody. You’ve put your finger on a dilemma. It’s important for those of us with PhD’s in economics to make use of our authority to affirm that another economics is possible. But we don’t want to imply in any way, shape or form that economics is only for the credentialed. So we take the untitled road.
Nancy Folbre: Occupy Economics
From Nancy Folbre’s NYT Economix post, Occupy Economics:
The Occupy Wall Street movement, displaced from some key geographic locations, now enjoys a small but significant encampment among economists.
Concerns about the impact of growing economic inequality fit neatly into a larger critique of mainstream economic theory and its deep faith in the efficiency of markets.
Read the rest of the article here.
We are the 99%
Animation on U.S. income distribution from The Guardian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab6Ji-fSlTk&feature=player_embedded
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2011/nov/16/99-v-1-occupy-data-animation
If U.S. land were divided like U.S. wealth
Source: http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/27/354837/land-distribution-american-wealth/
What Is the Economy For, Anyway?
http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/citizeneconomy/main.html
Sensible thinking about a central question.
Introducing Economics
http://introducingeconomics.org/
A compendium of useful resources for high school economics teachers.
Nuclear Explosions Since 1945
A powerful visualization of the nuclear war on mother Earth.
by aConcernedHuman on Oct 24, 2010
