The New School's Enduring Legacy: A Century of Heterodox Economic Thought and Interdisciplinary Inquiry

The New School for Social Research, particularly its economics department, stands as a unique institution with a rich history rooted in alternative and deeply theoretical thought. Founded in 1919 by faculty protesting Columbia University's infringement on academic freedom during World War I, it sought to create an environment free from hierarchical power structures and closed debate. A second pivotal moment occurred in 1933 with the establishment of the "University in Exile," which recruited top German scholars, many of them economists, who had been fired by the Nazi regime. This initiative, led by Alvin Johnson, aimed not just to save individual scholars but to preserve and foster an intellectual tradition by bringing a group of thinkers together.

The institution's distinct approach to economic training is characterized by a strong insistence on studying the history of economic concepts, rather than treating them as static, accepted truths. This historical context is deemed crucial for understanding the depth, interdisciplinary connections, and inherent contentions within economic theory. Furthermore, the New School actively encourages students to engage in cross-disciplinary work, exemplified by initiatives like the Robert Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, which brings together economists, historians, political scientists, and anthropologists to discuss economic dynamics. This commitment extends to exploring alternative paradigms for modeling the economy at both micro and macro levels, drawing from traditions like Marxian, Keynesian, and Kaleckian thought, not merely as alternatives but as robust tools to be developed and applied to contemporary issues.

The New School's intellectual lineage is deeply influenced by its 1933 Social Democratic tradition, aiming to mold capitalism towards more democratic and equitable outcomes, and by a 1970s shift towards political economy. This later turn infused concerns with exploitation, race, class dynamics, gender, and stratification into economic analysis, shaping the department's self-conscious approach to training students. The podcast highlights the significant influence of figures like Gerhard Colm, a "Mayflower group" economist who, despite being an exile, quickly became influential in the Roosevelt administration, contributing to foundational work on public finance and the Full Employment Act, demonstrating the practical impact of heterodox thinking.

The continued relevance of the New School's heterodox approach is underscored by the resurgence of "big social questions" in the 21st century, such as authoritarianism, capitalism's inequalities, environmental sustainability, and military conflict. The speaker notes that "capitalism," once a taboo word, is now widely discussed due to its pronounced inequities, making institutions like the New School vital. By addressing these macro and micro-level economic dynamics through a historically informed, theoretically diverse, and interdisciplinary lens, the New School aims to play a crucial role in shaping economic and broader socio-political thinking, offering a hopeful future for its unique perspective in a world grappling with complex challenges.

no institution should be forcing someone to sign such an allegiance

the structure of American University with its Boards of trustees and its very hierarchical power Arrangement and the nature of debate that was emerging in that period we're talking about World War one uh was starting to close all off openness close off academic freedom

the history of the new school as having two great founding moments

to not just bring an individual scholar and place them one at Yale one at Berkeley one at Michigan one in Florida but to bring a group group of thinkers together to kind of preserve and maintain an intellectual tradition

they really didn't intend to go back they were of course kind of shocked stunned and puzzled by the rise of fascism in Europe

you must study the history of cons of economic Concepts because uh textbook treatment which treats them as already accepted truth um is not doing a service to the depth the uh relation to other social sciences and the quite frankly the contention with which Theory emerges and Theory emerges evolves and becomes dominant in very complicated ways

an insistence that uh students not an insistence and a a kind of an appeal to students to reach out across disciplines

the kind of marxian tradition the Keynesian tradition the colettskin tradition these are important Alternatives not just to pose as next to a neoclassical or a neocanesian paradigm but to develop and to render relevant for the current moment to scrutinize and to utilize as lively and as robustly as we utilize the other tools

capitalism was as Bob Hall Brown used to say kind of a taboo word for a while for quite a while it had negative connotations you couldn't even use the word capitalism now you find it everywhere in the popular media

some of the great inequities of capitalism have emerged to such a great extent again that they can't be ignored and economics has some responsibility to address these