Reflections on academic tenure prompted by events at The New School

By Thomas Palley

The New School is a historically progressive US academic institution that has fallen on hard times. Recently, it has been in the news because it has fired several tenured professors, invoking financial distress and institutional reorganization as grounds therefor. That has prompted some public debate.

Below are some brief thoughts on that debate. I think it has been a missed opportunity. It should have been used to discuss how to govern academia and remedy the system’s existing glaring failings. Instead, it has been used to tacitly defend the system.

Read rest here. 

Post Keynesian economics and academic freedom

Tom Palley wrote a short post on his recent experience with the Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES). The post raises interesting issues about what constitutes an economic topic and where to draw the line between academic and non-academic work. A similar debate recently occurred on the listserv of the Union for Radical Political Economy (URPE) regarding an announcement about the Gaza conflict (specifically, whether it constituted genocide, whether URPE should have a statement on the topic, and so on).

On the two main topics of Tom's piece -- what constitutes an economic related topic, and what is an academic subject -- I should say that I tend to think that there are relatively clear answers (and my views might not be hegemonic, in this field; see what I did there?). I come from a political economy tradition, that harks back to classical political economy, according to which economics is about the material conditions for the reproduction of society, in which social classes, and the conflict between them are central not only for the determination of distribution, but also of the pace of accumulation and progress (another question open to debate).* Hence, issues related to Ukraine and Palestine, and other geopolitical issues are certainly part of political economy, and it is hard to suggest that they should be excluded from conversation.

On the other, whether something can be consider academic or not, at least from a sociological point of view, is entirely determined by peer review, what economists doing academic work in economics define as academic work. In this case, what Post Keynesians (PKs) considered PK economics to be. From that point of view, and regarding PKs, it seems clear that the issues of the war in Ukraine, that Tom was discussing (whatever the views on that were), would have always been seen as part of the tradition, and a perfectly reasonable topic of inquiry. Just to provide an example, in the second issue of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics (the journal that gave the name to the tradition), Charles Issawi had a long discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflicts to understand the 1973 oil shock (there are other papers in that issue on similar topics).

Mainstream economics always took a dim view of PKs willingness to entertain issues that were hard to formalize. Robert Solow famously said that:

"The proper way to do macroeconomics can hardly be all historical context and no analytical structure. Unfortunately the school has provided no systematic description or example of what it conceives to be the right way to do macroeconomic theory. Thus far so-called post-Keynesianism seems to be more a state of mind than a theory." 

Note that, while critical of PKs, Solow was not for the exclusion of PKs from conversation, and he was always willing to discuss with heterodox economists (on this see my short piece on his relation to ROKE on the occasion of his death).

In other words, the post by Tom was on economics on a topic that PKs considered economics, at least ib the past.** For those reasons, it seems hard to justify the PKES decision, which appears punitive and an attempt to stifle conversation, the sort of thing they persistently criticize about the mainstream. This is much worse given the current attack on academic freedom, particularly in the US, with Trump going after academia in general.

* For my views on heterodoxy, and its relation to that tradition see this old post, and this paper. On Post Keynesian economics see this old piece.

** Colin Danby reminded me of the old PK listserv that used to be more than announcement emails, and was effectively a forum for the discussion of ideas. 

Academic Freedom Watch: University of Manitoba

Based on an investigation conducted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), mainstream economists in the department of economics at the University of Manitoba, including the dean of faculty, have systematically marginalized heterodox professors. Robert Chernomas, a heterodox economics professor at the U of M, filed a grievance with university administration in 2009 claiming that the process for selecting a chair was “contrary to the collective agreement, unfair, unreasonable, and biased in relation to Dr. Chernomas.” Professor Chernomas had applied for the job but was not shortlisted by the committee. The committee eventually selected Pinaki Bose, an economics professor from the University of Memphis, in 2010. Since this appointment, according to Chernomos, heterodox professors have been "suppressed and isolated" to such an extent that they no longer hold any positions of authority or influence in the department.

Read rest here.

Academic Freedom Watch: Koch's Brothers and Universities

For the whole documentary go here. For the part specifically about their role in universities forward to minute 17:30 or so.

Academic freedom watch: academically disguised lobbying at the University of Kansas

I noted before the news about hiring practices at Florida State being influenced by the Koch's brothers ideological agenda. Now the news suggest that the Koch have been funding an ideologically biased center at the University of Kansas (KU). Art Hall, who worked for the the Koch's, and now runs KU's Center for Applied Economics, has been at the center of the controversy.

There is a new and troubling development in the story. Professor Hall has filed to block a group of students that wanted more information about the relation between him and the Koch brothers. Schuyler Kraus the president of Students for a Sustainable Future, the group behind the information request, suggested that: “It just seems more obvious that there’s something going on that they want to hide.” Indeed.

The connections of wealthy individuals, with strong views on the economy, funding research on economics is always problematic. Not surprisingly, this is happening at a Business School, which are often heavily dependent on corporate donors, who might have a political agenda that conflicts with the research values that most universities profess to follow.

PS: You may want to check the UnKoch My Campus website here. This quote from Charles Koch in their site is telling: "We should cease financing our own destruction and…[support] only those programs, departments or schools that 'contribute in some way to our individual companies or to the general welfare of our free enterprise system.'"

Academic Freedom Watch: We're NOT in Kansas Anymore

Two faculty members at UMKC are retiring, or so it seems, John Henry and Fred Lee, at the same time that cuts led to a new policy according to which full-time faculty would be replaced as they retire with adjuncts. This can only hurt small departments like the economics one. Students have posted here a Statement against this policy. There is a possibility that this is not unrelated in the case of economics to the type of approach of the department. It would be sad indeed if in the post-crisis period, in which many organizations and economists admitted that change in the way economics is taught if another heterodox department was under attack. The infamous Notre Dame case is still fresh enough, and should serve as a cautionary tale. More on this later.

Gary Dymski on the financial crisis and the crisis in economics

In the new issue of the Review of Keynesian Economics (ROKE) you can read Gary's paper (here). From the abstract:

A crisis that started as a textbook case of how financial and asset markets can spin out of control without adequate public oversight has transmuted in 5 years into a crisis of irresponsible sovereigns, such that restoring prosperity requires that governments re-establish control over their own excessive spending. How did this happen? This paper explains the recovery of position by pro-market, restricted-government proponents in economics on the basis of political divides and segmented lines of communication within the academic economics profession. These political divides involve a double invisibilization of power within economics: an invisibilization both of the political purposes served by a profession whose leading models deny the relevance of social and political power, and of the ideational barriers to entry into ‘mainstream’ departments. The argument is motivated and illustrated by the cases of the subprime and the eurozone crises.

For those heterodox economists interested in what to do, Gary suggests a pluralistic approach within the various heterodox perspectives.

Academic freedom watch: corporate donors to decide economic hires at Florida State

Academic freedom is in danger at Florida State. At least is what has been reported here. In short:

"A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting 'political economy and free enterprise.'"

This is bad in any field, but in economics where the incentives to be pro-business and 'free' markets are already huge it's even worse.

This reminds me of what Veblen said, almost a hundred years ago about what at the time where called schools of commerce, and which would fit our business schools now, and most likely this new program in the political economy of the free enterprise. Veblen said in The Higher Learning in America:

"A college of commerce is designed to serve an emulative purpose only -- individual gain regardless of, or at the cost of, the community at large -- and it is, therefore, peculiarly incompatible with the collective cultural purpose of the university. It belongs in the corporation of learning no more than a department of athletics. Both alike give training that is of no use to the community,except, perhaps, as a sentimental excitement. Neither business proficiency nor proficiency in athletic contests need be decried, of course. They have their value, to the businessmen and to the athletes, respectively, chiefly as a means of livelihood at the cost of the rest of the community, and it is to be presumed that they are worth while to those who go in for that sort of thing. Both alike are related to the legitimate ends of the university as a drain on its resources and an impairment of its scholarly animus. As related to the ostensible purposes of a university, therefore, the support and conduct of such schools at the expense of the universities is to be construed as a breach of trust."

It was true back then and is still true now. But at least one would expect that the university would have the freedom of choosing and evaluating its own faculty according to their own criteria. If corporate criteria is introduced, on top of the questionable character of the program, it is difficult to understand what is to be gained. Worse, in this case, it is a public institution.