Comment: Problems with Academicians

The Economist has just published an article decrying the decline of history as an academic discipline.[1] Dwight R. Lee, a respected econonomist who is also known as a witty popularizer, offers a comment.

First, the excerpt from the Economist ‘s July 20, 2019, “Bagehot” column:

“Even as history itself has become more dramatic, the study of history has shrivelled. The number reading it at university has declined by about a tenth in the past decade.

“At the same time, the historical profession has turned in on itself. Historians spend their lives learning more and more about less and less, producing narrow PhDs and turning them into monographs and academic articles, in the hamster-wheel pursuit of tenure and promotion. . . .

“And historians increasingly devote themselves to subjects other than great matters of state: the history of the marginal rather than the powerful, the poor rather than the rich, everyday life rather than Parliament. . . . These fashions were a valuable corrective to an old-school history that focused almost exclusively on the deeds of white men, particularly politicians. But they have gone too far. Indeed, some historians almost seem to be engaged in a race to discover the most marginalised subject imaginable.”

Dwight Lee responds:

I don’t know much about what most academic historians do, but I suspect the Economist has described them pretty accurately, and I doubt there is much difference between the British and American variety. Furthermore, I don’t think I am all that biased in my view because my criticism applies in general, if not in particular cases, to academic economists.

I used to say that if someone asked me what they should do to acquire some broad information about economics I would tell them the last thing they should do is take a college economics class, with exceptions of course. What I would suggest is to read some books by journalists who are not overly ideological and who have the ability to write well. For example, The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley; Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery by David Warsh; and Keynes and Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott. And let’s not forget Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt and “The Petition” and other works by Frédéric Bastiat. All these authors are journalists who learned some economics. (Also there is Common Sense Economics,[2] to which a journalist I know made a huge contribution.)

[1] “Bagehot: The End of History,” Economist 432, no. 9152. (July 20, 2019), 24. (Behind a paywall.)

[2] Authors are James D. Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, Dwight R. Lee, Tawni Ferrarini, and Joseph P. Calhoun.