Evan Jones lectured in economics, then political economy, at Sydney University from 1973 to 2006. Now retired, his predominant current interests are in bank malpractice in Australia and the French political economy.
University campuses across the United States were implacable scenes of angry debate and protest. There were clashes with helmeted police in adjoining streets. In April 1968, students occupied administration buildings at Columbia University, one of the causes being the university’s conducting of classified war research. There is an iconic photograph of student leader Mark Rudd sitting defiantly at the university president’s desk…
Economics students should be exposed to big-picture issues. Why so much brutality in the growth of material ‘prosperity’, and was/is it inevitable? Why do economic systems vary across ‘capitalist’ countries? Whence came the welfare state and why the decades of attacks on it?