Slashdot Mirror
A New Way to Learn Economics (newyorker.com)
John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker: With the new school year starting, there is good news for incoming students of economics -- and anybody else who wants to learn about issues like inequality, globalization, and the most efficient ways to tackle climate change. A group of economists from both sides of the Atlantic, part of a project called CORE Econ, has put together a new introductory economics curriculum, one that is modern, comprehensive, and freely available online. In this country, many colleges encourage Econ 101 students to buy (or rent) expensive textbooks, which can cost up to three hundred dollars, or even more for some hardcover editions. The project is a collaborative effort that emerged after the world financial crisis of 2008-9, and the ensuing Great Recession, when many students (and teachers) complained that existing textbooks didn't do a good job of explaining what was happening. In many countries, groups of students demanded an overhaul in how economics was taught, with less emphasis on free-market doctrines and more emphasis on real-world problems.
I always thought the best way to learn econ was countless hours of Dopewars.
"...who wants to learn about issues like inequality, globalization, and the most efficient ways to tackle climate change..."
That's not a list of economics subjects, that's a political agenda.
-Styopa
I would say indoctrination in the sense that economics is supposed to be about understanding how the economy works. Free market simply references the market forces of supply and demand, how they impact prices, and things that may (or may not) cause them to change, and why. Issues like inequality and climate change, while related to economics, are orthogonal issues. It sounds like they're trying to change a subject that focuses on a mixture of mathematics, politics, and psychology to that of a humanities class.
They do have a point about not adequately explaining the cause of the great recession, but that is a failure on the part of whoever is teaching the macroeconomics courses at the schools in question, and not necessarily the study of economics as a whole. One of the major failures of colleges these days is that while they are good at giving you knowledge, they totally fail at teaching you how to think. Muddying these two topics would only make that worse, as it teaches against examining topics from an "all other things being equal" perspective, which it just so happens is critical to economics.
While I agree that Marxism does not work, neither does the free market. The test of any economic system if it meets the needs of its people. Marxism or at least the communist versions of Marxism failed. Under these systems there were shortages of basic goods such as food and clothes.
Under the U.S. system, while we have plenty of food and clothes many people struggle to make ends meet. Our health care system is a failure with millions of people uninsured and many people with insurance who cannot afford medical care because of deductibles or copays. College is also unaffordable for many. So while we have plenty of food and clothes, many people cannot afford to meet their basic needs, especially when it comes to health care and education.
The systems that seem to work best are the hybrid systems that combine the free market and socialism, such as the Scandinavian. They use the free market where appropriate and they use socialism where appropriate thereby meeting the needs of all or almost all of their citizens.
Marxism is more specific than 'Socialist'. If 'The means of production' are in private hands, it's not Marxist.
The scandinavian countries are, generally speaking 'capitalist welfare states'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'