IN THE WAKE of the global financial crisis, there has been a backlash against the mainstream school of economic thought, of which Greg Mankiw is a proponent.
Mainstream economists did not predict the global financial crisis and notable commentators, including Steve Keen, single out the narrow minded and simplistic ideas put forward by mainstream economists as the source of the problems that the world economy now faces.
This backlash came to a head earlier in the month, November 2nd, when a large group of Professor Mankiw’s students, sympathisers with the Occupy Wall Street movement, boycotted one of his classes.
Commentator Steve Keen argues fairly persuasively that Professor Mankiw has based his popular mainstream economics textbook, Principles of Economics, on assumptions that are simplistic at best and, at worst, deeply and irreparably flawed.
What does this mean for mainstream economics as we know it?
What does this mean for Mankiw’s 10 Principles of Economics?