The Post-Autistic Economics Movement

Greg Mankiw is the author of the most popular introductory Economics textbook on the planet. As such he is also the target of criticism from the left, the right and from the post-autistic economics (PAE) movement. I don't know much about "post-autistic economics" other than the fact that they are purportedly challenging the "mainstream"/"neo-classical" economics of which Mr. Mankiw is an easy target. I don't know that I agree with their use of the medical term "autism", by which they mean "closed-minded" or "self-absorbed" but I do think that some of the complaints raised by the co-founder of the movement are worthy of some careful thought. Anytime there is a legitimate concern that ideology is trumping true scientific inquiry I think it is only responsible to take a look a little bit deeper:

While Mankiw’s text is easy for professors to use, it oversimplifies economic theory and leaves out the ways in which markets can degrade human well-being, undermine societies, and threaten the planet. Each year, tens of thousands of students go out into the world, with Mankiw’s biases as a roadmap to the future. But we know that the neoliberal agenda is more and more disputed outside universities. And within universities, alternative textbooks are flourishing. One can thus hope that these new textbooks, with their greater relevance to real world problems – and their better acknowledgment of the diversity and complexity of economic thought – will soon out-compete Mankiw’s bible. As a believer in competition, Professor Mankiw could only consider this to be fair game.

This is the warning sign the PAE team proposes economics teachers should place on their textbooks.


It's a good thing we live in an imaginary world with endless quantities of oil and other natural resources otherwise I would have to go back to college and learn "real" economics!