Harvard is the prestigious University in USA.
Professor Mankiw is a famous professor of Economics there. He was the Chairman
of the Council Of Economic Advisors during the second Bush Administration. Many
Americans believe that his conservative ideology created the collapse of
American economy and lead the country in the deep financial and economic crisis
since 2007, although the capitalist system is having inbuilt feature of crisis.
On 2nd November 2011, students at Harvard
University made history when they walked out from Professor N.Gregory Mankiw’s “Economics
10” course lecture. The students did so because they felt the lecture had a
heavy neo liberal bias(Neo liberal economics means a contemporary form of
economic liberalism that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, free
trade between nations and open markets to promote privatisation and
globalisation. It seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in
determining the political and economic priorities of the world).
Professor mankiw wrote two important text books on
elementary economics education which are being taught in many universities
around the world. The first one is “Economics: Principles and Applications” and
the second one is “Macroeconomics”. In the controversial”Economics 10” course
he taught the first one. Both books were written in a fashion that the ideology
expressed in those books is the last word beyond which no other opinion can
exist. American and European capitalism gave recognition to Mankiw’s brand of
economics as the “mainstream” economics.
The so called “mainstream” economics is based on
some crucial assumptions that the human beings are selfish and the ultimate
success of the individual is the maximisation of utility and the maximization
of profit. There is a myth that Adam and Eve fell from heaven on this earth and
started human civilization after committing sin of swallowing the apple of
knowledge. Mankiw would have led his students that some utterly
selfish(neo-liberal) individuals, without any semblance of history, dropped
from the sky one fine morning and initiated the capitalist market economy. Not
only that; the human civilization is destined to to end up on in capitalism it self.
In Mankiw’s book there is no mention of feudalism as the existing order of the
society before capitalism.According to his book, there is no possibility of any
logically next possible order of the society other than capitalism. He
ridicules any such possibility of socialism by ridiculing the erstwhile
socialist countries.
Karl Marx who dedicated his entire life for the
scientific analysis of capitalism finds no mention in his text book. According
to karl Marx all the previous social orders –primitive societies, slave societies,
feudal societies and the present dominant capitalist societies are part of the
pre-history of man. He described Capitalism as the last antagonistic mode of
production where exploitation of man by man reaches the climax, and hence part
of human pre-history, along with the previous exploitative orders of the
society. Real human beings and real history will start after ending this last
exploitative social order. But it is to be noted that not only karl marx, but
also there is no mention of the famous economist David Ricardo among the
classical economists in this book of Mankow. Also the famous economists and
Nobel prize winners among the contemporary economists—Amartya Sen and Joseph
Stiglitz also have no place in his book. It may be because they advocated
intervention of the Government to increase demand and employment. The name of
the famous economist John Meynord Keynes finds mention at only two places in
the book. It is well known that capitalism could revive during the great
depression from 1929-33 only by following the prescription of Keynes for state intervention
to create demand and employment. But in the present stage of capitalism
dominated by international finance capital, state intervention is opposed by
the finance capital since finance capital is a functionless capital since its
aim is to get quick profit in buying and selling financial assets or real
assets, but not by increasing production. If state intervention is necessary,
it means society can be run without the domination of the finance capital and
hence finance capital opposes state intervention.
Therefore Mankiw chooses to shield himself behind
Adam Smith and reiterates that every body is selfish in a market economy and
there is no concern about society. Adam Smith told every body is selfish and
will take care of himself and hence society will be wealthy if every body is
given a free hand in the market economy. Keynes formulated his theory against
this orthodoxy and showed that if every body expands their savings, through
petty selfish acts, it would in effect reduce the over all income of the
nation.
The students who walked out of his class gave a open
letter to Professor Mankow. They told that they enrolled in the Economics 10 course “
hoping to gain a broad and introductory economic theory that would assist us in
our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from
Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy and
beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of
economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of
economic inequality in our society today”. They told they were denied access to
alternative approaches other than the “main stream neoliberal” approach. They
further told, “ Harvard graduates play major roles in all the financial
institutions and in shaping the public policy around the world. If Harvard
fails to equip its students with a broad and critical understanding of
economics, their actions are likely to harm the global financial system. The
last five years of economic turmoil have been proof of enough of this.”
They further told, “ We are walking out today to
join a Boston-wide march protesting the corporatization of higher education as
part of the global Occupy movement. Since the biased nature of Economics 10
contributes to and symbolises the increasing economic inequality in America, we
are walking out of your class today both to protest your inadequate discussion
of basic economic theory and to lend our support to a movement that is changing
American discourse on economic injustice. Professor Mankow, we ask that you
take our concerns and our walk out seriously”.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is the movement in
America that started in September 2011 against the domination of the 1% of the
population in their country that have majority assets and political power,
comprising Corporations and the pro-corporate politicians. Wall Street in New
York symbolizes this 1%. The argument of the Occupy Wall Street movement is
that the 99% of the population should occupy the majority of assets and
political power. The Wall Street is the symbol of the collapse of finance
capital that resulted in the crisis in America. This movement has spread to
European countries also. It is still going on in America in various forms. It
changed the discussion in contemporary America.
(This is based on the article “Is the edifice of
neoliberalism finally crumbling”, written by Dr. Sudipta Bhattacharya and published in the web site “Pragoti.in”,
with certain modifications------asokababu)
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