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Why UO should make economics a mandatory Gen Ed requirement:

Joan Robinson

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a ready-made set of answers to economic questions, but to avoid being deceived by economists.

Can any other academic disciplines make the same argument? Law comes to mind, and of course Political Science. Other subjects? Other arguments?

9 Comments

  1. just different 08/17/2017

    Mathematics, although it’s usually not mathematicians who are wielding deceptive mathematics. And that’s not the only reason to study mathematics, but there doesn’t seem to be much consensus about what the other reasons are.

  2. UO community member 08/17/2017

    Marketing should always be #1

    • uomatters Post author | 08/17/2017

      Comment of the month, contact our Marketing Department for your UO Matters (c) coffee mug.

  3. Conservative Duck 08/18/2017

    Statistics would be a good inclusion as well, and for the same reason. Numbers get “massaged” and data “interpreted”. Take crime statistics, for example.

  4. just different 08/18/2017

    Here’s another one: Religious Studies.

  5. really 08/18/2017

    Statistics
    History
    Journalism

  6. Dogmatic Ratios 08/18/2017

    If you mean mendacious, meretricious, and under-scrutinized ‘disciplines’, how about ‘Higher Education Administration’?

    • uomatters Post author | 08/18/2017

      Thanks, and it turns out meretricious doesn’t mean what I thought it did!

  7. Moonman 08/21/2017

    Noooo. No economics requirements please. Enough voodoo. Unless of course you make the very first 101 level class Introduction to Von Hayek, or “The Way the World Works for the One Percent.”

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