When Microeconomic Instruction Serves as Ideology

The standard introductory course in microeconomics presents a sophisticated set of tools for understanding the dynamics of markets, which are of central importance in all contemporary societies. Unfortunately, most textbooks for this course inadequately address and frequently distort the six following issues critical to students' understanding of economic society: Work is presented negatively as providing disutility; interdependence in decision making is ignored, masking the social nature of humans; the view that economic growth be society's principal goal is uncritically embraced; and the consequences of externalities are inadequately addressed, as too are market power, and property rights. The outcome is that students are often left with the impression that unfettered markets necessarily deliver economic efficiency and just outcomes, resulting in pedagogy that serves as ideology legitimating prevailing unequal social conditions. This article is intended to help professors recognize the incomplete and unbalanced understanding offered by most microeconomics textbooks to better enable them to avoid teaching economics as ideology.