In an earlier post we found that Harry Johnson thought student course evaluations were useful when interpreted properly but of questionable utility for e.g. hiring and promotion decisions. His message to graduate students in 1968 transcribed below reveals three truths wrapped in irony. Perhaps there is an older Chicago-trained economist who can help younger, non-Chicago trained economists extract Harry Johnson’s intended signal from the satirical noise? At the bottom of this and every page of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is space for comments.
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SKIT FOR STUDENTS’ PARTY
May 17, 1968
by
Harry G. Johnson
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Pray silence, while you listen to and meditate upon the remarks of Chairman Harberger, as he addresses the new students in the Graduate School of Economics at the University of Chicago, I quote to you from the remarks of Chairman Harberger.
Many of you have graduated with distinction from reputable and respected undergraduate schools of economics; no doubt you expect to put in another three years or so learning those things that you had insufficient time or preparation to study as undergraduates, and acquiring the qualifications to teach in such a school, or to work for the government, or possibly—God forbid—to go into business.
The first thing you will have to learn is that you are stupid and misguided in this expectation. You have not learned what economics is about, and you will have to start all over again by unlearning what you have learnt, or think you have learnt. Real economics, as understood and applied at the University of Chicago is precisely what most of you have been taught to think of as nonsense, an archaic mythology disposed of by the pseudo-economics in which you have been trained. Real economics, the kind you are here to learn, is founded on the assumption that the price system works. This is a hard thing to believe; but after three years or so you too will come to believe it. Real economics is founded also on the assumption that the quantity of money—something most of you have never heard of—really matters. It matters not just for macroeconomics, but also for everything else from personal freedom to the poverty problem. This is an even harder thing to believe; but you will either learn to believe it, or perish in the attempt.
The second thing that you will have to learn is that nothing here is what it is called. Or, perhaps, following Humpty Dumpty, what things are called is not what they mean. Thus, you might be tempted to believe that the sequence of courses in money is designed to help you get through the money part of the Core. You have my personal assurance, publicly recorded this very afternoon, that this is not the case. Or you might expect that Course 302, described as being concerned with distribution theory, is about the theory of distribution. It is not. We offer you instead an embarrassment of riches: a choice between a 302 that is really a 303 on general equilibrium analysis, a course which we shall not be able to introduce formally until 1969; and a 302 which is a mixture of a course called 304, the pure theory of capital, that was discontinued some years ago for lack of student interest, and a course given at another time of the year under the number 371, international economic relations. After these hints, you will not I hope be surprised to learn that our econometrics sequence is not a sequence; and in the opinion of some informed people it is not properly described as econometrics either.
The third thing you will have to learn is that, if you want to learn something here, you will have to study something else. This is another example of the Humpty Dumpty approach towards words and meanings that we practice in this Department. Thus, if you want to be a regression analysis technician, you must do your thesis in labour economics. If you want to be an international trade or monetary economist, study mathematical economics. If you have a broad interest in society’s problems, and an unrepentant hankering after the social philosophizing of your undergraduate days, you must register in agricultural economics. If, by some strange chance, you are interested in agricultural economics, you must register as a specialist in economic history. If on the contrary you are interested in public finance, you must register in economic development—if you register in public finance so-called you will have to become an expert on pubic [sic] triangles. But just to confuse you, we have two specializations that mean what they say—international trade, and money and banking—though if you are interested in the monetary aspects of international trade, you will of course do your thesis in the money and banking workshop.
These are the three most important lessons a University of Chicago graduate student in economics has to learn. And you will learn them as you pass through the Department. If you do not learn them, I have one final remark to make to you. That remark is——goodbye.
Source: The Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 79, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Miscellaneous”.