“our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it. Those concerned with public intellectuals as a class will inevitably fret about the health of that class. Or, they’ll hyperventilate about class purity, or the “appalling decline” in quality of most other public intellectuals.”
Mack points out that public intellectuals should not have to worry about what education or certifications they have to successfully spread an idea or message through society. More emphasis needs to be placed on what these public intellectuals discuss in order to put less pressure on them to achieve new qualifications, which may in turn prevent further research and knowledge to be spread. With this said, it is now time to bring up well-known economist Dr. Gary Becker. Becker has an extremely prestigious academic background, including a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. Becker was able to use his resources and knowledge to alter the traditional view of economics. Facing criticism from his peers and colleagues, Becker broke the norm for economists as he was the first to combine social issues with economics to shape various aspects of society, proving that public intellectuals must focus on their audience’s interests and needs to make a significant impression.
Tracking
back through Becker’s childhood and family life, it is no surprise that
he embarked on a career in economics. Born in a small coal-mining town
in Pennsylvania, Becker lived with his parents, two sisters and one
brother. Becker’s father had left school after the eighth grade in
order to make money and owned a small business by the time his children
were born. This lack of formal education did not provide the best
example for a father of four, leaving Becker in need of learning the
value of education later in life—which he did. The Becker family moved
to Brooklyn when Becker was four years old. His father soon after
tragically lost most of his eyesight. This tragedy brought about a
learning opportunity for Becker, read his father stock quotations and
other reports on financial developments daily. This was Becker’s first
exposure to the business world and, just like most children; he found
the content rather dry and boring. In high school Becker faced what he
thought to be one of his toughest life decisions at the time: whether
to join the math team or the handball team because practices met at the
same time. Though claiming a great affinity for handball, Becker chose
math, and for that, we thank him. In addition to reading business
material to his father, the Becker household was constantly buzzing
about politics and justice. According to his autobiography, it was this family atmosphere that gave Becker an urge to do something useful for society and not just to focus on math.
After
his childhood and high school years in Brooklyn, Gary Becker attended
Princeton University for his undergraduate work. Interestingly enough
Becker enrolled in an economics course due to a complete accident during
his first year of college. He was instantly drawn to the subject and
decided to graduate in only three years in order to enter the real
world. Becker succeeded in this ambitious goal by teaching himself a
handful of courses and maxing out his course load every semester and
summer. After graduating Princeton in 1951 with a B.A., Becker moved on
to the University of Chicago for graduate work in economics. Why did
Becker want to extend his education further into economics, particularly
at Chicago? He viewed economics as a powerful tool to analyze the real
world and the University of Chicago was home to some of the most
prestigious economists at that time period, such as his professor,
Milton Friedman, who reinvigorated Becker’s excitement for the subject.
After
completing his graduate program and earning his Ph.D., Becker began
researching and applying economics to social issues. In 1957 he wrote a
book based on his Ph.D. dissertation, which was the first organized
work that used economic theories to analyze the effects of prejudice on
the earnings, employment and occupations of minorities. For an expert
in the field of economics to begin analyzing information like this was
unheard of and Becker received a lot of criticism. Economists didn’t
view racial discrimination as economics and sociologists and
psychologists felt that Becker wasn’t contributing to their respective
fields. Despite the criticism, Becker continued his research as an
assistant professor at the University of Chicago, determined that his
work would make a difference in the future.
Looking
for a change of pace, Gary Becker took a joint job at Columbia
University and the National Bureau of Economic Research in Manhattan.
Continuing his research of social issues, Becker wrote a book on human
capital along with articles on allocation of time, crime and punishment
and irrational behavior. Most of the research done for these works was
conducted at the National Bureau of Economic Research, proving that more
people started to believe Becker’s ideas. At Columbia Becker started
leading a workshop on labor economics and related subjects. What
exactly did Becker mean by “related subjects”? Anything of interest to
the students or Becker and his co-director, Jacob Mincer, was considered
a “related subject.” Students were fascinated with the workshop and it
was a huge success for years. This is a great example of how Becker
used the interests and wants of his audience to spark interest and
spread information. Becker adapted his workshop to his audience and
students couldn’t stop talking about the workshop, causing it to become
extremely popular and crowded. The popularity of Becker’s strategy ties
back to the conclusion that Mack makes in his essay regarding the true
measure of public intellectuals, stating:
“if public intellectuals have any role to play in a democracy—and they do—it’s simply to keep the pot boiling. The measure of public intellectual work is not whether the people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.”
Gary Becker does just that by presenting the students in his workshop an opportunity to discuss anything of interest to them and their peers. Unlike most professors who lecture on what is in the course guide, Becker connected with his students who in return heard “things worth talking about,” as Mack discussed.
Not only did Becker give his students freedom over topical coverage in class, he forced them to participate and contribute to class discussions. Last fall Gary Becker had his eightieth birthday and the University of Chicago Law School held a reception to honor the legendary professor. A number of key economists spoke about current economic issues and complimented Becker on an incredible career. As stated in a recap of the celebration, the following anecdote about Professor Emeritus William Landes was shared:
“Landes recounted meeting Becker when he was a student at Columbia University, where Becker was teaching at the time. “Gary was 31 and students were in awe of him,” Landes said. “I wanted to know who Gary was. I never found out until I arrived in class.” Though Landes was auditing Becker’s human capital class, Becker called on him every day. Later, Landes became his teaching assistant. Landes eventually followed Becker to the University of Chicago, where he achieved legendary status among students and the legal academy.”
As Landes described, all of the students at Columbia were obsessed with the young professor to the point where Becker gained celebrity status on campus at the age of thirty-one. This is quite a feat for someone who was criticized by his peers for his initial research. Becker further demonstrated that you must engage your audience in order to capture their interest, shown by forcing Landes to participate in class even thought he was auditing the course.
After his success at Columbia, Becker returned to the University of Chicago in 1970 where he primarily focused on family issues. These issues included marriage, divorce, altruism toward other members and investments by parents in children; all of which had never been viewed through an economic lens before. Becker’s new research and work on families was ignored or strongly disliked by most leading economists. The younger generation offered sympathy as they found it refreshing to learn about new studies and ideas developed from someone well respected. Becker continued to branch away from the typical economist as he was offered a joint appointment in Sociology Department at the University of Chicago. He was finally given acknowledgement for the success of his research and studies as he was given free reign to his two areas of expertise: economics and sociology. Becker made the most of this new joint appointment as he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 for his application of economics to human and social behavior. Along with this huge honor, Gary Becker was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 to acknowledge his contributions to the nation.
While Becker researched and developed a number of theories and ideas, the true depth of his success and contributions are seen through changes in paramount social issues. According to his profile in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:
“Becker showed that discrimination will be less pervasive in more competitive industries because companies that discriminate will lose market share to companies that do not. He also presented evidence that discrimination is more pervasive in more-regulated, and therefore less-competitive, industries. The idea that discrimination is costly to the discriminator is common sense among economists today, and that is due to Becker.”
In a country such as America with a history of racism and stereotypes, the fact that Becker could reduce discrimination in society is unmatched. In addition, Gary Becker conducted numerous studies on the costs and benefits of education. After much research, Becker, in the early 1970’s, was the first person to discuss education as an investment. Today a college education is absolutely mandatory to have a successful career; this is also due to Becker. Another area that Becker has contributed to with his research and work is crime and punishment. Becker was able to explain how the decision to commit crime is a function of the costs and benefits of the crime and in order to reduce crime the probability of punishment must increase and/or make the punishment more severe. With these studies and research, Becker helped spawn a new branch of economics, which gave a fresh vision on how to reduce crime. These long lasting contributions have been commonplace in society for the past few decades and they all stemmed from Becker’s work.
Over the course of his career, Gary Becker has been anything but a conventional economist. As portrayed above, Becker received all of his inspiration from his audience as he gave them the freedom to express their interests and what is personally important to them. Becker was able to translate these interests of his audience into research and public works that have forever changed the view of economics and several key social issues. While he was questioned a handful of times during his journey, Gary Becker is a model public intellectual as he put more emphasis on the significance of his work rather than personal qualifications.
No comments:
Post a Comment