It was a March afternoon in 2023 and I was waiting on the fifth floor of Evans Hall. I don’t remember what day of the week it was, or if it was sunny outside. I do remember eyeing the history of Berkeley Economics on display in front of me. “1875 – Bernard Moses is appointed Professor of History. He is the first faculty member to teach political economy on the Cal campus.” Thinking of the Economics department’s roots in political economy and history, I hummed. What are the odds? I mused. And then, considering my own departure from the Political Economy department in favor of an Economics major, I wondered, Am I doing the right thing?
I loved studying Political Economy, and switching majors in my sixth semester felt especially daunting. I’d have access to reserved seats in economics classes in my final year, and this was certainly a perk — but what about the ideas I had come to believe in so deeply, that institutions matter, and that people matter too? Going from Political Economy to Economics seemed a betrayal of some kind. It felt almost like an admission that there should exist some form of ‘pure,’ scientific version of economics unencumbered by political systems and realities.
Retrospectively, it shouldn’t have been surprising that the instatement of a political economy-loving Professor of History marked the beginning of Berkeley Economics. In hindsight, it has also become clear that my apprehension around taking up the major was unfounded. Berkeley’s department of economics has, at least in my experience, shown strong awareness of the institutional roots and deep complexity of how economics plays out in the real world — and the field’s propensity to downplay them. Jim Campbell — widely beloved and well known for his love of pinball, sneakers, and sushi — opens ECON 1 with a clear-eyed lecture on economics and the world. In it, he introduces the field as a whole. Most memorably to me, however, he grapples with economics as it is, neither simplifying nor sugarcoating but confronting ideas such as that all models are wrong, but some are useful. He discusses normative and positive economics, pointing out that subjective beliefs influence economic judgment. He acknowledges that tradeoffs can be difficult, but often must be made in a resource-scarce world.