A wide swath of college education has fallen under the control of “progressives” who use their courses to promote their statist ideas. But at least students in economics classes are really learning how to analyze the world, right?

In today’s Martin Center article, economics professor Alexander Salter disagrees, finding that much of what passes as economics education is deficient.

He begins:

The economics major is in dire straits. Across the nation, econ curricula aren’t instilling an appreciation for, or even a familiarity with, the economic way of thinking. Theory classes limit the power of economic analysis by reducing markets to sterile exercises in ‘perfect competition,’ or else subordinating social science to social control by obsessing over ‘market failures.’ Empirical classes equip students with sophisticated statistical tools but at the cost of reducing applied economics to data-mongering.

The sad result is students who think they understand economics, but have only a weak grasp of how markets work but are ready to advance all sorts of interventionist measures to make the economy work better.

Among Salter’s complaints are that students aren’t taught about prices, scarcity, spontaneous order, and property rights.

He argues that “we need a concerted effort to put the economic way of thinking back into the econ major.” Read the whole thing to find out what he thinks that would look like.