Harvard Economics students walk out of class in protest for professor teaching economics in a manner favorable to elitism and corporate control..
Harvard students set up Occupy protest
Some unhappy the way Harvard spends its money
CAMBRIDGE (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) – Going from Dewey Square to Harvard Yard as Occupy protesters set up camp at the legendary Ivy League school. Tents began popping up in the yard Wednesday night, where students of the Cambridge school rallied earlier in the day.
About 350 people gathering outside in Harvard Square, waiving signs and at one point, security was checking IDs at the yard’s gate.
Students are demanding a new contract for custodial workers and are unhappy with the way Harvard spends some of its money. They believe Harvard’s $32 billion endowment has supported questionable policies, and should bear more social responsibility.
“Personally, I’m slightly uncomfortable receiving money in scholarships that come from a direct result of displacing people and depriving them of their lands and their livelihoods,” said Reed McConnell, a Harvard Freshman.
“I love the scholarship money I am getting from Harvard but I don’t want the money coming from expense of somebody who is getting their land taken away” says Reed.
When asked if she’d rather take out loans, McConnell says “The way I see it, I shouldn’t have to. Harvard should be able to make socially responsible investments and earn the same returns and still be able to give incredible financial aid.”
Harvard released a statement, saying free speech is a hallmark of the university to uphold, but will also ensure the safety of its students, especially those who live in the yard.
Hundreds of protesters marched out of Harvard Yard and into Mass Ave Wednesday, stopping traffic in Harvard Square and taking over the street in what appeared to be an impromptu march.
Protesters held signs reading “We want a University for the 99 percent.” Other groups, like ‘Justice for Janitors’ joined in the march as well.
“It just shows how this movement can proliferate,” said Jason Rowe, a Harvard student.
Harvard’s own web site says the school costs more than $52,000 a year for room, board, tuition and fees combined. It also says more than 60-percent of Harvard college students receive financial aid. The average grant this year was $40,000.
Several days ago, 70 students walked out of an economics class at Harvard University and joined with Occupy Boston to protest the way Harvard invests its endowment.
CORRUPTION OF ECONOMICS
Most classical economists had their vision of a ‘stationary state’-the ontological destination of economic growth and development constrained by the planet’s population exploration vis-à-vis finiteness of arable land and the exhaustibility of nonrenewable resources But the early modern period witnessed the colossal enterprise of scientific inventions and their technological potential where economic growth appeared unlimited. Neo-classical value theory , based on marginalism and subjective valuation obliterates natural resources from economics ontology and ends up leaving essential aspects of real world economics out of the analysis .There would be no economy without a constant inflow of natural resources like the sun and the atmosphere, the soil, the seas, fossil fuels, metals and minerals, etc throughput in the system .In United States, the primary challenge to the classical tradition came from what has since come to be known as neo-classical economics. The classical tradition of economic thought was ably synthesized and represented by one dominant figure of the age in America: Henry George. His 1879 book, ‘Progress and Poverty’ sold more copies throughout the world than any book till that time except the Bible. George propagated that conflating land into capital allowed land rent to be concealed and diluted and the undeserving windfalls accrued to ‘leisure class’ speculators and led to depression of labour wages at the margin. Following the classical tradition, George recognized that there is no justification for the titleholders to reap the return of what society has invested. Professor Mason Gaffney in his 1994 book ’The Corruption of Economics’ has described how the leading Economics scholars were induced to change definitions and to initiate two-factor (capital and labor) neoclassical economics denying land and natural resources’ contribution in production process to serve primarily the interests of the most powerful political force during the late nineteenth century America- the railroad industry. The railroad barons exerted their manipulative power to preempt the possibility of any rent extracted from land use. They were able to influence the dominant brains engaged in establishing the American Economic Association (AEA). To oppose and alienate George from the domain of economics had been the preoccupation to the founding members of the AEA that fetched a grand success.
OCCUPY ECONOMICS