Cicero's children : the worth of the history of economic thought for business students

- Millmow, Alex

Title
Cicero's children : the worth of the history of economic thought for business students
Creator
Millmow, Alex
Date
2009
Type
Text; Journal article
Identifier
http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/74211
Identifier
vital:7224
Identifier
ISSN:0812-0439
Abstract
Despite talk about the first sightings of the ‘green shoots of recovery’ the Global Financial Crisis which began to unfold in August 2007 is likely to exert some impact upon the prevailing economic and political philosophy. The big question for economic and business instructors is to ponder whether it will lead to any significant changes in economic and business syllabus at Australian universities. The teaching of mainstream economics is durable and usually resistant to change. Yet the crisis has certainly caused rumblings in the teaching of first-year economics. As one ABC reporter recently asked ‘How do you teach economics at a time like this?’ There is certainly a great curiosity among the young about what went wrong. Moreover they wish to know why neoliberalism has failed and why state interventionism is resurgent. Young minds must be perplexed about the rapid revision of agenda from containing inflation in 2008 to coping with recession in 2008. To paraphase the lyrics to the old Talking Heads song ‘Once in a lifetime’ ‘You may ask yourself, well… how did we get here?’ This is what they and we are asking themselves. This paper argues that an introductory course in economic ideas could help tell them why.
Relation
Economic papers Vol. 28, no. 4 (2009), p. 355-365
Rights
Copyright ACER
Rights
Open access
Rights
This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
Subject
1402 Applied Economics; History of Economic thought; Economics education
Full Text
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