Vincent Navarro — How Should Economics be Taught?

Navarro: One of the major problems we encounter in the production of economic knowledge is its excessive disciplinary approach. Actually, the academic institutions are usually divided by departments based on disciplines, one of them being economics. The reality that surrounds us, however, cannot be understood following the disciplinary approach. The understanding of our realities, including the economic ones, calls for a multidisciplinary analysis, with the understandings of the historical, political and social forces that shape and determine that reality. In order to understand the current Great Recession, for example, we have to understand how power—class power, race power, gender power, national power—is produced and reproduced through political institutions, as well as social and cultural ones. In other words, we have to comprehend how power relations shape the governance of our societies, including their economies. 

The current economics, for the most part, do not do that. They specialize in branches of the tree without understanding, or even less, questioning, the nature of the forest. Moreover, they have given great emphasis to the methods, depoliticizing the realities of the economic phenomenon. Today, modern economics is used as a way of confusing and/or ignoring the political realities that shape the economy. Currently, most of the major economic problems we face are basically political....

The absence of the study of the political and social context, determined historically, makes current economics an apologetic message for current power relations, mystifying, hiding, and/or confusing the understanding of the economic phenomena. It is not surprising, therefore, that the critical traditions within economies are completely ignored or marginalized. It is predictable that current economists did not perceive the arrival of the current recession, which is a Great Depression for millions of Europeans. Only analysts from critical traditions were able to predict it. And we did it....

The current emphasis on methods and its analysis of the economic reality without looking at the political context that determines it is a consequence of changes in the power relations in our societies. The apologetic function of current economies of the current power relations explains its lack of relevance. What we have been seeing since the 80s has been the enormous growth of income derived from capital, and the decline of income from labor. This has resulted in the drastic growth of inequalities.

But those who derive their income from capital have enormous influence on value-generating systems, including the media and universities. This is extremely clear in the US but is happening also in the European universities. Today, the influence of financial and economic institutions in the production of knowledge is enormous. They fund research, support economic journals, and shape, to a large degree, the academic culture in the area of economics. It is very similar to what happens in medicine where the pharmaceutical industry has a major influence in shaping clinical knowledge and practice.

In my over 50 years of academic life, never has the 1% (those who derive their income from capital) had as much influence in shaping the knowledge of economics....

Worth reading the whole interview.

The Greenville Post
How Should Economics be Taught?

Vincent Navarro | Professor of Public Policy, Sociology and Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the chair of the Public Policy program University Pompeu Fabra

This interview was conducted by students at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, one of the leading schools of economics in Europe.