Universities protect academic economists’ ethical autonomy more than they police it

Evidence

Universities have the resources to develop ethical guidelines and the power to enforce them. They are the employers of academic economists, and ethical lapses damage them, too. They are the natural institutional guardians of their employees’ professional behavior. … And, conveniently, universities also have been the staunch natural defenders of the Divine Right of economists to do whatever they please. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 613

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Economists drove and profited from the commercialization of universities — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 587; University restructuring locked in economists’ institutional shelter from accountability — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 589; Preserving professional autonomy outweighed ethical concern for elite scientists — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 360 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Preserving professional autonomy outweighed ethical concern for elite scientists #corroborates (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 360
• Tenure protect scholars from markets yet breeds systematic accommodation of power #qualifies (0.75) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 324