Christopher Hayes sat in on the University of Chicago's introductory economics class. He recounts his experiences in "What We Learn When We Learn About Economics", an article in the November issue of In These Times, a progressive or soft-left American publication.
One can quibble with aspects of Hayes articles. The Chicago school is only a subset of neoclassical economics, not all of neoclassical economics. (Compare and contrast the role of the "Chicago boys" in Chile and the "Harvard boys" in Russia. Does Hayes' error matter?) I'm not at all sure Hayes understands "efficiency" as "Pareto efficiency". (But wouldn't that be Allen Sanderson's fault?) In general, Allen Sanderson comes off as an ignoramus, I think. Does he really suggest to the kids that who gets what is a matter of who is willing to "work hard"? Whatever happened to Hayek's understanding of abstract rules and entrepreneurship? I doubt Sanderson has ever read Gunnar Myrdal's The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory. As I understand it, whatever the label, Steve Forbes is not an advocate of a flat tax; he doesn’t want to tax property income.
(Hat tip toMark Thoma and Ezra Klein.)
Update: Hayes' article is the subject of a post with many comments at Crooked Timber.
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