The storming of the accountants
-- It began as a small revolt at the Sorbonne in Paris, but may yet develop into a worldwide movement against the tyranny of numbers. --
By David Boyle
"It may work fine in practice," goes a joke that the French make at their own expense. "The trouble is, it just doesn't work in theory." So it is strange that Paris has become the birthplace of a revolt against the pre-eminence of theory over practice, of economic abstraction over reality, and statistics over real life. Called "post-autistic economics" - "autistic" is intended to imply an obsessive preoccupation with numbers - the revolt began with a website petition in June 2000 from students at the Sorbonne (see [http://www.paecon.net]). They were protesting against the dogmatic teaching of neoclassical economics and the "uncontrolled use" of mathematics as "an end in itself".
Within weeks, the call was taken up by students across France. Le Monde launched a public debate, and Jack Lang, the education minister, appointed the respected economist Jean-Paul Fitoussi to head an inquiry. Fitoussi reported last September, backing many of the rebels' points and recommending sweeping changes in the way economics is taught in French universities. The movement has had a worldwide impact, with Cambridge students drawing up their own petition - although most were too scared for their future careers to put their names to it.
Could this episode prove the beginning of the end for the whole cult of measurement, statistics, targets and indicators that has become such a feature of modern life, not just in the Blair government, but around the world?
Carl
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