Matias Vernengo — Business Schools, Liberal Arts Education and Heterodox Economics

So we're having a discussion about the new Management College at Bucknell. Traditionally resources are the main problem in the relation between business schools and economics departments. Often, as in the University of Utah, were I was before, there are issues related to the curriculum, in particular if the economics department is heterodox. In a liberal arts environment, the issues are not only associated to resources, but also to the teaching of what is assumed to be more practical knowledge or marketable skills in a milieu in which the main goal of education is to develop the essentials for civic life, where critical thinking and the ability of learning how to learn are at the center of the curriculum. 

Is it possible? Or would the management goals undermine the liberal arts experience. Note that many think that liberal arts education is doomed anyway (an old topic by the way). The fear is that students cannot (given tuition costs) afford the luxury of an education for education's sake, but need 'practical knowledge,' that would be useful in the market (the market analogy was used freely in the faculty meeting). I have my doubts about how useful 'practical knowledge' is compared to a broad education that prepares citizens to think independently and critically about the world, but that's difficult to evaluate, I guess.

It's only difficult to evaluate because of different standards based on different views of human being — homo economicus versus homo socialis — and different context — chiefly economic or chiefly social and political. This depends on whether one adopts methodological individualism and rational choice theory based on the philosophical assumption of ontological individualism or a system approach based on a complex web of variable networks and feedback, in which families are fundamental rather than individuals "rationally" pursuing maximum utility.

What could be more important for a liberal democracy than education that develops "the essentials for civic life, where critical thinking and the ability of learning how to learn are at the center of the curriculum." Like Matias, " I have my doubts about how useful 'practical knowledge' is compared to a broad education that prepares citizens to think independently and critically about the world.…  My feeling is that a liberal arts education is often more practical than practical knowledge."

I come at this from the perspective of philosophy and its history. The idea of liberal education, as well as participatory democracy, comes from ancient Greece, in particular the Athens of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, also other schools also made contributions, such the Stoic emphasis on society based on brotherly love. After the decline of Rome, European civilization was eclipsed by the barbarian invasions, followed by the religious dogmatism of medieval Scholasticism. The ancient learning was revived during the Renaissance and flowered into the Age of Enlightenment that produced modern liberalism, the scientific age and industrial society based on quickly proliferating technology.

In both ancient and modern times, a liberal education was only possible for the elite, since in the Agricultural Age productivity was low and most everyone was required to work the fields and then the factories. Only the rentiers were considered "free men" capable of governing because they had the leisure for a "liberal" education instead of on-the-job training from an early age owing to practical necessity for the rest of the society, whose surplus production supported the lifestyle of the privileged elite who alone were actually free and had the ability and leisure to participate in governing.

In postmodernity, productivity has increased to the point that enough leisure is available for universal education and the concept of liberal democracy has been established in most developed countries. Liberal democracy as participatory democracy cannot flourish in the absence of liberal education, which is the preparation for it. In a liberal democracy, focus on "practical" education rather than liberal education is impractical since it erodes the foundations of liberal democracy in free inquiry and critical thinking.

Naked Keynesianism
Business Schools, Liberal Arts Education and Heterodox Economics
Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University