Open Letter to Geometry Professors

[Onion Eater]

The Post-Autistic Economics Network has grown bold enough to demand that economics associations censure anybody who displays “axiom-happy behavior,” as this is considered symptomatic of autism.

It is accepted fact that the economics profession through its teachings, pronouncements and policy recommendations facilitated the Global Financial Collapse (GFC). To date, however, the world’s major economics associations have declined to censure the major facilitators of the GFC or even to publicly identify them. This silence, this indifference to causing human suffering, constitutes grave moral failure. It also gives license to economists to continue to indulge in axiom-happy behaviour.

Since these associations are funded entirely by the Federal Government, this is tantamount to government censorship. Indeed, their use of the word censure, rather than censor, implies a formal reprimand issued to an individual by an authoritative body. Specifically, it implies incarcerating free-market economists in prisons or mental institutions, which goes well beyond destroying their written work. This is highly reminiscent of the Soviet practice of denouncing dissidents as mentally ill. If preventing autistic people from getting published becomes accepted policy, it is only a short step to forcibly institutionalizing anybody who has studied geometry or otherwise shown an aptitude for the axiomatic method.

As a mathematics professor, you may not feel that the actions of an economics association are your concern. But the post-autistic economists (also known as real-world economists) have been firmly in control of the social sciences for at least twenty years. For that long it has been impossible to publish in economics or other social science journals if one mentions the axiomatic method, makes an issue of clearly stating one’s assumptions, or if one’s critics can find a geometry class on one’s transcript. This limits the job prospects of your students. And the stakes are much higher now that the post-autistic economists are demanding censure of people displaying “axiom-happy behavior.” Censuring axiomatists is a much stronger demand than censoring them, which long ago became established practice in the social sciences.

I believe that it is time for geometry professors to stand up to these loathsome people and publicly denounce them for practicing censorship. The world needs to know that there is nothing wrong with making one’s assumptions clear at the beginning of an academic paper.

Victor Aguilar

p.s. If you believe that censorship is wrong, download the PDF file and send it to your favorite geometry professor or teacher.