Socialists demand the repeal of the hukou system. We are opposed to all forms of discrimination whether on grounds of ethnicity, sex, age, religious beliefs or place of birth. But to demand the end of the hukou system and its repressive apparatus of permits and state surveillance is not enough. A massive programme of public investment is needed to recreate vital basic services such as healthcare, education, public transport and a social security system, which have been downsized or dismantled under 30 years of economic "reforms", and especially since the 1990s. The central government talks about doing these things but its pro-rich policies mean that the real situation is not improving and in many cases is getting worse. The virtual bankruptcy and indebtedness of a great many local governments means that the problems must be tackled nationally, through a massive injection of central funds, which in turn requires a root-and-branch change of the economic and political system. The only alternative is democratic socialism – to replace an economic system dominated by the profit hunger of a super-rich minority, with democratic planning of the productive forces under the control of genuinely independent and fully democratic organisations of workers and peasants.
A Brief History of the Post-Autistic Economics Movement
经济学后向改革运动简史
Theories, scientific and otherwise, do not represent the world as it is but rather by highlighting certain aspects of it while leaving others in the dark.It may be the case that two theories highlight the same aspects of some corner of reality but offer different conclusions.In the last century, this type of situation preoccupied the philosophy of science.Post-Autistic Economics, however, addresses a different kind of situation: one where one theory, that illuminates a few facets of its domain rather well, wants to suppress other theories that would illuminate some of the many facets that it leaves in the dark.This theory is neoclassical economics.Because it has been so successful at sidelining other approaches, it also is called “mainstream economics”.
From the 1960s onward, neoclassical economists have increasingly managed to block the employment of non-neoclassical economists in university economics departments and to deny them opportunities to publish in professional journals.They also have narrowed the economics curriculum that universities offer students.At the same time they have increasingly formalized their theory, making it progressively irrelevant to understanding economic reality.And now they are even banishing economic history and the history of economic thought from the curriculum, these being places where the student might be exposed to non-neoclassical ideas.Why has this tragedy happened?
Many factors have contributed, but three especially.First, neoclassical economists have as a group deluded themselves into believing that all you need for an exact science is mathematics, and never mind about whether the symbols used refer quantitatively to the real world.What began as an indulgence became an addiction, leading to a collective fantasy of scientific achievement where in most cases none exists.To preserve their illusions, neoclassical economists have found it increasingly necessary to isolate themselves from non-believers.
Second, as Joseph Stiglitz has observed, economics has suffered “a triumph of ideology over science”.1Instead of regarding their theory as a tool in the pursuit of knowledge, neoclassical economists have made it the required viewpoint from which, at all times and in all places, to look at all economic phenomena.This is the position of neoliberalism.
Third, today’s economies, including the societies in which they are embedded, are very different from those of the 19th century for which neoclassical economics was invented to describe.These differences become more pronounced every decade as new aspects of economic reality emerge, for example, consumer societies, corporate globalization, economic induced environmental disasters and impending ecological ones, the accelerating gap between the rich and poor, and the movement for equal-opportunity economies.Consequently neoclassical economics sheds light on an ever-smaller proportion of economic reality, leaving more and more of it in the dark for students permitted only the neoclassical viewpoint.This makes the neoclassical monopoly more outrageous and costly every year, requiring of it ever more desperate measures of defense, like eliminating economic history and history of economics from the curriculum.
But eventually reality overtakes time-warp worlds like mainstream economics and the Soviet Union.The moment and place of the tipping point, however, nearly always takes people by surprise.In June 2000, a few economics students in Paris circulated a petition calling for the reform of their economics curriculum.One doubts that any of those students in their wildest dreams anticipated the effect their initiative would have.Their petition was short, modest and restrained.Its first part,“We wish to escape from imaginary worlds”, summarizes what they were protesting against.
Most of us have chosen to study economics so as to acquire a deep understanding of the economic phenomena with which the citizens of today are confronted. But the teaching that is offered, that is to say for the most part neoclassical theory or approaches derived from it, does not generally answer this expectation. Indeed, even when the theory legitimately detaches itself from contingencies in the first instance, it rarely carries out the necessary return to the facts. The empirical side (historical facts, functioning of institutions, study of the behaviors and strategies of the agents . . .) is almost nonexistent. Furthermore, this gap in the teaching, this disregard for concrete realities, poses an enormous problem for those who would like to render themselves useful to economic and social actors.
The students asked instead for a broad spectrum of analytical viewpoints.
Too often the lectures leave no place for reflection. Out of all the approaches to economic questions that exist, generally only one is presented to us. This approach is supposed to explain everything by means of a purely axiomatic process, as if this were THE economic truth. We do not accept this dogmatism. We want a pluralism of approaches, adapted to the complexity of the objects and to the uncertainty surrounding most of the big questions in economics (unemployment, inequalities, the place of financial markets, the advantages and disadvantages of free-trade, globalization, economic development, etc.)
The Parisian students’ complaint about the narrowness of their economics education and their desire for a broadband approach to economics teaching that would enable them to connect constructively and comprehensively with the complex economic realities of their time hit a chord with French news media.Major newspapers and magazines gave extensive coverage to the students’ struggle against the “autistic science”.Economics students from all over France rushed to sign the petition.Meanwhile a growing number of French economists dared to speak out in support and even to launch a parallel petition of their own.Finally the French government stepped in.The Minister of Education set up a high level commission to investigate the students’ complaints.
News of these events in France spread quickly via the Web and email around the world.The distinction drawn by the French students between what can be called narrowband and broadband approaches to economics, and their plea for the latter, found support from large numbers of economics students and economists in many countries.In June 2001, almost exactly a year after the French students had released their petition, 27 PhD candidates at Cambridge University in the UK launched their own, titled “Opening Up Economics”.Besides reiterating the French students’ call for a broadband approach to economics teaching, the Cambridge students also champion its application to economic research.