We know that many leftist professors think of themselves as change agents who applaud everything that helps them turn students into activists for their statist/collectivist view of the world and, of course, also lament anything that works in the other direction. Sometimes we find one who blurts out the truth and says that teaching concepts that could make students skeptical about that world view is bad. Here we have a piece written by an Occidental College sociology professor, Lisa Wade, who thinks she proves that studying economics makes students “anti-social.”
She claims that “Economics majors are more anti-social than non-econ majors. And taking econ classes also makes people more anti-social than they were before.” She points to some research that purports to show that econ majors are less generous than other students. For one thing, they were less apt to want to donate to favored leftist causes such as PIRG (Public Interest Research Group, a leftist network) and a “non-partisan” group lobbying to reduce tuition rates.
An understanding of economics probably makes them less apt to donate money for statist advocacy because they understand the negative consequences of the sort of meddling that is pushed by PIRG and also that reducing tuition for students simply shifts the costs to taxpayers who likely have other preferred uses for their dollars. But Professor Wade doesn’t hesitate to smear the econ students as “anti-social.”
Why does economics lead to this atrocious result? Wade sites sociology professor Amitai Etzioni who suggests that in econ, students don’t get “balancing” classes — ones that present “a different kind of economics.” That is a long-standing leftist gripe about the discipline, of course. Because economics discourages the drawing of conclusions based on emotion and emphasizes the need to fully consider the results of action — the opportunity costs and the unintended consequences — it makes the student less inclined to fall head over heels for leftist panaceas such as the minimum wage, “free” medical care, and so forth. Leftists demand a “different” economics that isn’t really economics at all, but instead dispenses with the critical analysis of government intervention in favor of the feel-good mush that has taken over sociology.
Paul Krugman is notorious for taking the line that if you disagree with him, it’s because you are a bad person. Put Professor Wade in that camp too.
Hat tip: David Lips