
Economics education can shift people in a selfish direction? - denzil_correa
http://qz.com/137754/economics-is-making-us-greedier/
======
calibraxis
If the results are true, it's not surprising when we see economics as
politics, and economic statements as ultimately moral ones. (Why organize
production/consumption/allocation one way, rather than zillions of alternative
ways? Does the economic system not affect society's power structures? Don't we
spend over half our weekdays as producers, under boss rule?)

Econ-as-morality becomes clear when we discuss challengers/improvements to
capitalism, and flamewars erupt. (And not just unimaginative alternatives like
Soviet socialism, as if the only alternative to Coke is Pepsi...)

What do we know about capitalism's properties? Its supporters constantly talk
about the moral benefits of sociopathic behavior. They say it harnesses
humanity's greed... as if that's the only emotion to consider. (Rather than
saying it rewards greed and punishes empathy.) So what else do we expect from
courses in captalist doctrine?

And this is obvious when we imagine (largely uncritical) training in any other
economic system; training in morality.

~~~
skylan_q
_What do we know about capitalism 's properties? Its supporters constantly
talk about the moral benefits of sociopathic behavior. They say it harnesses
humanity's greed... as if that's the only emotion to consider. (Rather than
saying it rewards greed and punishes empathy.) So what else do we expect from
courses in captalist doctrine?_

It should be realized that the capitalist system should be treated as an
economic mode. Far too often, people take capitalism to be a moral end.

I still consider the capitalist system the best for meeting human material
needs when it doesn't take precedence over moral and ethical considerations.

------
drabiega
I've seen a few papers directed at this exact question, but they've all come
to the opposite conclusion. To be fair, these are Economics papers so some
level of bias may be in effect, but I believe that at least one of the linked
papers goes on to conclude that this is not the case based on experimental
trials which showed that while Economics freshmen kept more than people in the
Dictator game, seniors in Economics were in line with seniors of other majors
and that both gave away more than their freshmen counterparts. I'll see if I
can access more of the linked papers later, but it seems like he cites a lot
of papers but only actually mentions their conclusions when they agree with
his point.

------
gress
Choosing an economics major means _not_ choosing any of the other subjects.
Since modern economics is focussed on greed and selfishness, it seems
perfectly reasonable that not spending time on other parts of the human
experience would lead to a paucity of spirit.

~~~
QuantumChaos
I chose to study economics (in graduate school) because I wanted to make the
world better, and I discovered that the non-economists I studied from as an
undergrad (in "development studies") were less convincing than the economists
they critiqued.

One of the main goals of economics is to provide advise for government policy
to make society better off (by some average of human well-being). I would say
it takes more spirit to choose the discipline than can and does do this, than
to fall for shallow critiques from outside the discipline.

~~~
gress
You do realize you're begging the question by simply asserting that economics
is _the discipline_ that makes the world a better place and that critiques
from outside are shallow?

~~~
QuantumChaos
Not so much begging the question, but making an assertion that I don't have
space to prove. How could I prove that modern physics is correct to someone
who had perused a physics textbook and concluded it wasn't worth serious
consideration?

>Since modern economics is focussed on greed and selfishness...

is shallow

------
QuantumChaos
I think that economics leads to a different view on greed and selfishness,
that the author should try to understand rather than talk down to us and force
us out of our bad thinking patterns with re-education.

According to economics, all people are selfish (or self-interested if you
prefer an less loaded term). How then can we make the world better when we are
only interested in ourselves?

First, economics shows that in many cases, all individuals working for their
own interests works as well as if everyone cared only about the common good.
This is the first and second welfare theorems of economics.

Second, to the extend that we are altruistic, we should focus that altruism in
an efficient way. For example, giving to someone slightly less wealthy than
yourself is less efficient than giving to someone a lot less wealthy than
yourself. And altruism exists not just in giving money, but also donating time
and effort to maintaining the social institutions that benefit all of us.
Given my experience with economists, they may actually be more altruistic when
measured this way. And a rational person might choose to engage in the latter
kind of altruism, while giving zero dollars to charity, since they already
"give" money through the tax system.

Finally, given all of the above, economists tend to allow themselves the
freedom not to _feel_ altruistic. From a utilitarian perspective, what is
needed is not so much more altruism, but more efficient use of people's
existing altruistic feelings.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I think economics raped the word 'rational', shot-gun married it to 'self
interest', and created a godawful mess that it's going to take the species at
least another century to escape from.

Likewise with 'efficient'.

As for selfishness vs altruism - short term gain can lead to long term loss,
which is why 'rational' economic theories have such poor long-term predictive
power. (In fact, they have negative predictive ability. You can be sure that
if someone billed as important makes a prediction about macro conditions,
something else is going to happen.)

What exactly is rational about a system which centuries of history have proven
is unable to function without a predictable cycle of manic-depressive booms,
recessions/depressions, and anti-democratic bailouts?

~~~
QuantumChaos
You cannot criticize economics without at least some understanding of it. The
only point that was coherent enough for me to reply to was:

>What exactly is rational about a system which centuries of history have
proven is unable to function without a predictable cycle of manic-depressive
booms, recessions/depressions, and anti-democratic bailouts?

Economists claim individuals are rational, not that the whole system is
"rational". Rational individuals interacting could result in a really shitty
result, which is bascically what macroeconomics is about.

Depressions suck, that is why macro-economists try to smooth out the business
cycle. The fact the we needed the latest bailout is a sign they haven't solved
this problem yet. But I don't have a better solution.

------
afafsd
Isn't this a bit like "Students who take too many science classes are likely
to be ungodly?"

The article starts off from the presumption that greed is bad, and then whines
that people who understand economics better are more greedy. Perhaps it could
instead come to the conclusion that people who understand economics are more
intimately familiar with the way that best-possible outcomes do tend to arise
from everybody acting in their own self interest and thus that "greed" (in at
least certain senses) is not a vice at all?

Incidentally, as for the Dictator Game, I imagine that you get very different
results with economics students and others who are intimiately familiar with
the "Dictator Game" and similar psychological experiments than you would with
someone who has never heard of this situation before. That might be an
interesting experiment.

~~~
lutusp
The above post didn't deserve to be downvoted (and I upvoted it on that
ground), because it's topical and insightful. Regardless of how some anonymous
reader with a mouse and an itchy index finger feels about the expressed
opinions, the post meets all the criteria for a useful contribution to the
thread.

Tl;dr: I find anonymous downvotes really, really irritating.

------
eevilspock
It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And here on HN, it's the dominant ideology. It will be hard to achieve fair
open-minded discourse on this.

[thanks lutusp for the spelling correction.]

~~~
lutusp
> It's called a self-fulfilling prophesy [sic].

This is another error I'm seeing more and more often.

* Prophesy (verb): to predict.

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prophesy](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/prophesy)

* Prophecy (noun): a prediction.

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prophecy](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/prophecy)

------
baddox
> In 1776, Adam Smith famously wrote: “It is not from the benevolence of the
> butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from
> their regard to their own interest.”

> Economists have run with this insight for hundreds of years, and some
> experts think they’ve run a bit too far. Robert Frank, an economist at
> Cornell, believes that his profession is squashing cooperation and
> generosity.

It's embarrassing that the author directly quoted Smith while completely
failing to understand the quote. The point is that self-interest _causes_
cooperation.

~~~
dang
No, the author does not completely fail to understand the quote. He's casting
doubt on the reduction of co-operation to self-interest suggested by Smith—or
rather by a simplistic interpretation of Smith—because (the claim goes) there
is evidence that studying economics makes people less co-operative. The quote
is apropos and there's nothing embarrassing about it.

What's embarrassing are instant middlebrow dismissals of entire research
programs because of ideological and tribal identification.

I'm not defending the article's claims and have no idea if they're right, but
HN threads can be and need to be better than this.

~~~
baddox
If you're implying that I am identifying myself with some tribe and therefore
immediately dismissing the entire research program, I disagree and regret
giving that impression. If this is your impression, I am curious what about my
comment gave you that impression, because I genuinely do not see anything in
my comment that hints at a specific ideology or tribe, or an instant
middlebrow dismissal of an entire research program. I am not a "Smithian" or
whatever tribe is being hinted at here, and I did not dismiss the entire
research program. I only pointed out what I think is a misrepresentation of
that well-known Adam Smith quote.

I find the research quite interesting, although I don't believe that we can
conclude anything about the validity of any belief based on attributes of the
people espousing the belief. That's the ad hominem fallacy.

------
rubyn00bie
Economics students learn about mathematical games and how to use resources;
they also learn stats which it appears the author is completely ignorant of...
Saying that being more aware makes us greedier is idiotic. We understand the
rules better.

Correlation != Causation

I mean that. There is seriously no information here which can be formulated
into any reasonable hypothesis. The links to most of the data are pay walled.

"Adam Grant" seems to have his doctorate in Psychology-- which doesn't
surprise me given the complete lack of proof. Looking at his Wiki page it
appears he doesn't have anything even related to statistical analysis. So I
guess we'll be "feeling" this one out. Anecdotal evidence like this is why
Economists, Math, and the hard sciences make fun of Psychology.

Economics is such a massive subject well beyond money and greed that I think
this sort of hyperbolic headline only helps keeps the masses ignorance. Go to
any modern school of Economics and you'll be quite surprised when you get to
the "institutional section," for starters.

Enrollment is psychology is probably down, or he lost some funding. This is an
article from an idiot/marketer/businessman.

~~~
dang
This comment starts out as a shallow dismissal, rejecting the article with
generic hand-waves, and then nose-dives off topic.

The article may be wrong but is not unsubstantive, and it appears to describe
work done by many researchers. It deserves better. A better discussion would
engage seriously with specifics. "Seriously" implies making less wild claims
and trying to substantiate what one says.

There's a grain of a specific response here: the claim that the links don't
point to data that can be inspected. But that doesn't mean the work is
worthless, just that academic paywalls are a problem.

We did change the linkbaity title (probably not the work of the author) to a
sentence from the article, and added a question mark, in the hope of dampening
this sort of reaction.

------
n0rm
Not quite.

Economics teaches you that there is no logic or system to this chaos, and
after a threshold, it's no man's land.

Then, natural instinct takes over.

Welcome to the jungle.

------
dnautics
Unfortunately for the title of the piece, there's a distinction between
"economics" and "teachers of economics".

I would also like to see a breakdown of the study's economic professors based
on the different "schools" of economics, roughly (and presumably self-
identified): Chartalist, Keynesian, Monetarist, Austrian.

~~~
Mikeb85
Pretty much everyone in the field belongs to the 'Neoclassical' school.

You only find distinctions like you mention on the internet...

