Heterodox Economics At The University Of Manitoba

The emergence and maturation of the social sciences is an important component of the expansion of institutions of higher learning in the 20th century. The discipline of Political Economy, increasingly institutionalized in various Canadian universities in the early decades of the century, secured a Chair at the University of Manitoba in 1909. After 1914, its title became “Political Economy and Political Science” and the department subsequently served “as the great mother department to which were attached newer social science disciplines until it was deemed appropriate to let them launch out on their own” (Pentland, 1977, p. 3). Political Science became independent in 1948, Geography in 1951, and Sociology and Anthropology in 1962 (p. 4). Agricultural Economics, which was taught in the Manitoba Agricultural College, became its own department when the college joined the university in 1924. In the 1930s, Agricultural Economics was absorbed into Department of Political Economy. However, according to Pentland (pp. 4–5) it was not until the late 1940s that agricultural economics became a significant “sub-department.” It subsequently separated itself from Political Economy and, in 1954, became an independent department in the Faculty of Agriculture (p. 5). The result of these disciplinary developments was that the faculty of the Department of Political Economy had, from time to time, members whose expertise lay outside the increasingly well-defined terrain of economics. Despite this, however, they did not seem to have any long-lasting direct impact on shaping and defining the curricula in Economics. Since these other disciplines left and became independent when they had reached a certain size or degree of influence, Economics was left to define and pursue its own agenda unencumbered by the needs of these former associates.