Wellesley College economics professor Julie Matthaei is a Marxist living in a modern-day commune in Cambridge who has carved out an academic niche questioning the status quo. She is unapologetic about her beliefs, describing herself on her Wellesley Web page as a “Marxist-feminist-anti-racist-ecological-economist.”
But she was stunned recently when this description was used against her in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times by a murky pro-business group opposed to raising the minimum wage. Matthaei was among 600 academic economists who signed a petition supporting a minimum-wage increase, which the ad tried to discredit.
“Suddenly you’re thrust on the national stage, and it was a shock,” said Matthaei, who has taught at Wellesley for 36 years. “I felt I was being red-baited.”...
[Employment Policies Institute] research director Michael Saltsman] denied any “red-baiting,” noting that the description of Matthaei comes directly from her Wellesley Web page..
The US Solidarity Economy Network list of examples of a Solidarity Economy include:
She has taught feminist economics at Wellesley, as well as courses in Marxist and post-Marxist economics, to thousands of students while raising concerns about climate change, racism, sexism, and economic inequality.
She likened attempts to vilify her as similar to tactics used to discredit Obama and cast him as a socialist because of his efforts to create a system for universal health care.
“It’s an attempt to say any government intervention is socialism, and socialism is bad,” she said. “Capitalism is not the last and best economy. I believe we can find a higher level of economic life that’s more cooperative and more environmentally sustainable.”...
Today, she is cofounder of the US Solidarity Economy Network, which promotes “social welfare over profits and the unfettered rule of the market,” and a member of the Union for Radical Political Economics,
unpaid care labor
collective kitchens in Latin America
social investment funds
equity in all dimensions: race/ethnicity/nationality, class, gender, LGBTQ
"She has taught feminist economics..."
ReplyDeleteWait....what?! "Feminist economics"? What the hell? I guess it isn't surprising that the rest of the sentence says:
"... as well as courses in Marxist and post-Marxist economics, to thousands of students while raising concerns about climate change, racism, sexism, and economic inequality."
Ask me if I'm surprised. Don't these idiot Marxists ever quit? Marxists....? Hello?! Your economic system CRASHED and BURNED, remember? Not to mention it left over 150 million corpses in its wake.
These types of people are sick control freaks with endless blood lust. It's damned scary!
"Capitalism is not the last and best economy."
Sweetheart, you haven't anywhere NEAR the brains or the common sense to match Mises or Rothbard so please. They have more brains dead than you do alive, so please don't even try.
"Today, she is cofounder of the US Solidarity Economy Network, which promotes “social welfare over profits..."
Oh, good grief! You can't have social welfare without profits you idiot. Where the hell do you think the money comes from? Your ear wax?
RW, punch me in the face.
These are the types of "teachers" our socialist "education" system fosters. The longer you stay in the system, the more state indoctrinated you become. Our Ivy League institutions, the so-called best of the best, are cess pools full of communist/socialist PhDs.
DeletePiled higher and Deeper is now the correct term for PhD.
Just FYI - "Austrian" "economics" is about as far away of the mainstream and loony as Marxist-feminist-anti-racist-ecological "economics." The main practical difference is that one is espoused by right-leaning crazies and the other by left-leaning crazies. The two points of view are actually pretty similar in their rejection of disciplined application of the scientific method, formal modelling and rigorous statistical analysis to economic policy.
Delete- Ph.D. economist who feels like poking his eyes out when reading the likes of you and Julie Matthaei.
@Anonymous - 1:18 PM
DeleteYou are very much mistaken in your claim that Austrian economics rejects the disciplined application of the scientific method. The root of your error is your misunderstanding of the scientific method. Economics is the study of human action. Humans are not inanimate objects. It is not disciplined or scientific to apply the type of formal modelling developed for the study of inanimate objects to animate beings.
While it is true that Austrian economics rejects the application of statistical analysis to economic policy, the statistical analysis that mainstream "economics" uses in certainly not rigorous. It is not rigorous to apply the techniques of class probability to a situation that involves case probability. Austrian economics rejects the application of statistical analysis to economic policy because it would not be scientific to do so.
My favorite part of the story is when the self-described Marxist professor says “I felt I was being red-baited.” The capacity for illogic that some people have is amazing.
ReplyDeleteMy father used to say that if a computer was constructed such that it would respond to 1 + 1 as being equal to 3, it would necessarily produce other errors as well because logic can't be derived from illogic.
It is hilarious to see a living example of this in Professor Matthaei. It takes the same illogic that she demonstrated by her claim of being "red-baited" that it does to hold her Marxist point of view.