The Bigger Picture

[andrewducker]

Our every day situation is intrinsically tied into the workings of an economy that is now massively connected to the wider world. The majority of people have no real idea how economies work - and the effects that ripple outwards from all the decisions that happen around them. Nor are most of them likely to start taking an interest if they don't have a basic grounding in the first place.

[Poll #1514949]

Comments

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Err, I got Economics along with every other second year pupil at my Scottish council school, in 1981, then went on to do it at SCE 'O' Grade in my 3rd and 4th year.

(I hate that both Public School and Private School means the same thing, and there seems to be no term except State School for us, the great unwashed.)

[andrewducker]

I'm glad you did. I wish more people had!

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Waiting for my other half to chip in, as I suspect that Economics must have been part of the (Scottish) National Curriculum for us.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Heh, I did home economics! (I wasn't allowed to do technology, because I had too many sciences and thus has to rebalance my GCSEs with home ecc, I was not a happy bunny).

Although, home economics did teach us about tax and benefit.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the economics is an urgent subject, though it might do some good.

I'd give priority to personal/household finance and how to read contracts.

[goldrose.livejournal.com]

We had it in high school.

And another thing

[ekatarina.livejournal.com]

Also finance, personal finance.

I am currently drowning in debt because I never really learned how to manage money until I didn't have any left and I was in trouble.

Better not ever get to that point.

Ekatarina

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Qualified yes: it depends on what you mean by economics.

(while I might think that all schoolchildren should be taught the basics of game theory, I can appreciate that not everyone thinks as I do)

[andrewducker]

Enough to be able to recognise the good and bad points of economic policy, for a start. The uneducated voter will vote for bread and circuses, not realising the problems it causes later.

I also think that people should get a basic grounding in philosophy - particularly things like the philosophy of science - and critical thinking. Training people to be able to think better about the world is always good.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Agreed on philosophy - I'd add a modicum of logic (enough to be able to recognise a false syllogism, perhaps).

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

The problem with critical thinking is it can be quite difficult to qualify.

The best example and my first experience of critical thinking was my sociology teacher asking "What is the capital of France?.......... Prove it".

My own school experience was that of being spoon fed information with a "this is the way things are, learn it" rather than a more inquisitive approach, and this is probably because the teachers only have so many sessions to cover an entire syllabus. I'd like to see school more about education than passing exams.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The uneducated voter will vote for bread and circuses, not realising the problems it causes later.

I'm not sure that's true (don't all sorts of people vote for stadiums, even though they're probably a loss?), and I don't think it's the kind of thing usually included in economics.

I don't know if there's a name for learning to think quantitatively about public issues.

Maybe classes in numeracy at a variety of scales are what's called for.

[andrewducker]

"bread and circuses" is a shortcut, from Juvenal, and I meant that if people don't understand economics then they cannot know whether something is going to have good long-term outcomes, especially when the results are counterintuitive.

For instance, in the short term protectionism can seem very inviting. We protect ourselves from problems. The problem is that others protect themselves similarly, until everyone is isolated and the amount of trade drops precipitously, causing the economy to go downhill, so in the long term it's a losing strategy. If people aren't educated then they won't even know that there's an issue to think about.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I think this is becoming more & more crucial.

The amount of people who fall for crap like:

'year on year increase'
'higher / lower than ever before'
'more nurses / doctors / roads / schools than in year X'

or even more obvious bullshit like 'full employment'.

It depresses me the way that so many people will swallow a statement with little context, don't consider the wider implications & attach to it whatever context they want to believe.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Huh! What's your reasoning in that?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Why game theory? Because I think that they should understand that the successes or failures that result from their decisions also depend on the decisions of others.

[broin.livejournal.com]

I would imagine eyes would pop out at that realisation.

Nice one. I'll add that to future arguments on the topic. Counter-media studies, first aid *and* game theory.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Might teach kids to be nice to each other?.... To co-operate.............. Nah, probably not :)

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Possibly not, I agree, though the concept of a Nash equilibrium is a bit of an eye-opener.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

The vast majority (possibly all) professional economists don't have any idea how economies work, so having lessons on economics will be about as useful as having lessons in theology IMHO. It woudl just be indoctrinating kids with the big fibs of capitalism.

[andrewducker]

That's like saying that because we don't have a detailed understanding of the brain we shouldn't teach psychology because it would just end up indoctrinating people with materialism.

You can easily teach the basic ideas of economics without having to indoctrinate anyone with anything, and while nobody understands how massive complex systems of any type work in great detail, you can teach _about_ a variety of different theories and what their plus points and minus points are.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is like psychology. I think the vested interests are more powerful, and our ignorance more profound. It's like teaching theology in a world dominated by one powerful religion.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

So you're in favour of the economic version of teaching abstinance only?

-- Steve's can't say he agrees that this is better than teaching even our limited understanding of economic matters.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

No it's like refusing to teach creationism

[andrewducker]

Seeing as economics is studied by battalions of academics who constantly criticise each other's work and attempt to form new theories based on observation of the real world, I'd say that you were coming down on entirely the wrong side in this one.

Sure, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but to dismiss it as being alike to deliberate fraud strikes me as complete insanity.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I refer the honourable gentleman to this post which kind of sums up my feelings on the matter. This is from a professional market analyst.

the production of more or less mendacious intellectual smokescreens for policies which favour the interests of rich and powerful men isn’t a sort of industrial pollution from the modern economics profession – it’s the product.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

And so not teaching kids how to recognise smokescreens is going to help them avoid this... how?

There are any number of subjects that can be taught dogmatically; refusing to teach economics because of that is as foolish as refusing to teach physics or music or history on the same grounds. You don't protect kids by keeping them ignorant; that's why I used the "abstinance only" analogy.

-- Steve knows there's plenty of voodoo economics out there, but the solution isn't to make the whole subject taboo.

[andrewducker]

So a post which points out that one set of economists are correct and quotes the founder of a school of economics positively is an example as to why Economics is a fraud?

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Pretty much

[andrewducker]

It looks to me like there are lots of competing ideologies, and that anyone with an interest in the subject would have to pay close attention, learn to read between the lines, and not take anything for granted. Which also sounds like politics to me. In both cases I'd recommend that people were taught about the subject as early as possible so that they can learn to separate out what makes sense from what doesn't.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I have worked in curriculum reform, and I've done so since the mid nineties on and off. About the only thing I have learned from this is to free up the curriculum, not pile it on. Seriously - look at this thread. Curriculum review boards are like this x100. Squared.

[andrewducker]

I'm sure they are. And everyone has their own things they favour on the curricilum and things they'd be happy to cut.

I mean, you could happily have disposed of my Geography lessons from school and replaced them with a Social Sciences course instead, covering Economics and Politics, making me vastly happier. But it would probably have pissed other people off a lot.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I've seen this argument before, but I'm not sure it's a valid parallel, because it relies on an unspoken assumption that these classes would be teaching a specific economic theory or theories as fact. I'm not convinced that's what a school economics class needs to look like.

For me, it would be more reasonable & useful to cover things like:
- Understanding basic models & their limitations
- Evolution of the current economic model in the UK
- How things like interest & exchange rates, money supply, balance of trade, wages might effect the economy
- Basic game theoretic & decision making concepts
- Inflation

For that matter, I think basic statistical concepts would be no bad thing either.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Thirteen US states require a class in economics (and one in government) before you graduate. California is one of them.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

In principle I agree, but in practice I think that knowledge of personal finance and microeconomics are more useful to most people than macroeconomics.

[andrewducker]

As are reading, addition, and other basic skills. Not really my point.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I would say that a compulsory class in personal finance would be more useful. I learned a little about economics in Modern Studies - on a worldwide scale, anyway. You can't really look at governments and politics without looking at least a little at economics, they're all so tightly connected now.

[andrewducker]

I would say that a compulsory class in personal finance would be more useful

More useful to what? I mean, lots of basic skills are more useful than economics when it comes to day to day life. Reading, addition, the ability to look both ways when crossing the road. Not sure what the pertinence is.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, but it seemed to me that your point was that the reason kids should know about economics was because they need to understand how economies interconnect and spiral out and affect one another, and part of that, surely, at the ground level, is the way in which their personal finances are are affected by the larger economic whole, the useful, practical knowledge to gain there being how to cover their own economic arse, and I would say that a full education on personal finance could and should involve a certain amount of education about the larger picture for that very reason?

[andrewducker]

I guess it's just that I view that as a vital bit of background before you'd start to look at economics in general. Like being able to do maths. Or being able to read. If you don't have a grasp of the idea that incomings should be higher than outgoings then you're fucked before you get anywhere near economics.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Then I think maybe by your reasoning teaching some kids about economics might be skipping a step.

[andrewducker]

Why?

Did I say "teach them economics before they can add" or "Teach them economics before they can read"? I didn't lay out a complete syllabus, pinpointing the dependencies and exactly what key skills they shoud learn before tackling later subjects, I just said that they should learn some economics.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Then I'll clarify: "First they should learn about personal finance."

[andrewducker]

In which case I'll clarify my response: "Sure, that'd be handy to give them a basic grounding."

[random-redhead.livejournal.com]

we did modern studies and the whole thing was shot through with political subtext and effectively brainwashing as part of the curriculum. I would like to see them teach the tools of ecconomics and not use it as a time to write history into kids heads

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

I did Higher economics at school. I think everyone should be given a grounding in economics, statistics and personal finance - e.g. how to calculate compound interest. But I suspect that the powers that be prefer people to be ignorant and more easily conned.