Aspie_Muslim_Economist_ posted:My main goal is to just make people aware that the orthodox stuff they are going to learn isn't the only thing out there--to teach them some heterodox basics and critiques of orthodox economics and give them resources to continue learning after they've left the class. Most students in a mainstream program will never even learn that there are alternative views, so I think that at least giving them that exposure is a big benefit.
you said you're at carolina right? have fun when gov. squintface fires your ass for not producing viable employment widgets
tpaine posted:*takes off shades* That ain't halal. *shotgun blast*
Aspie_Muslim_Economist_ posted:guidoanselmi posted:
imho econ 101 stuff was too rudimentary to do anything revolutionary? i remember taking it in HS hoping to actually understand how what we would learn would pertain to toppling the global north - but sadly none of it to be found. rather pretty justifications for exploitation by comparative advantage, etc (e.g. "you see, it's ok when we buy coffee for cheap and export military HW!")
like any other class, worked out examples that relate what's learned to real world (like effects of QE/monetary policy as pertains to right now) would help actually ground a students knowledge. i dont know if macroecon 101 is the right place for marxism but im sure you can dedicate 1 fun class (like right before spring break) on LVT and some concepts from kapital
also, laffer curve.
My main goal is to just make people aware that the orthodox stuff they are going to learn isn't the only thing out there--
yeah and they're going to become end-the-fed libertarians
What you need to do before embarking on ANY deviation from mainstream liberal economics is to illustrate to your students exactly how their wealth and social power and indeed relations are built upon the blood, bones and eternal, unquantifiable suffering
Ironicwarcriminal posted:unquantifiable suffering
i can see someone's not an actuary.
antonymous posted:actually you might have one student like me in the class who is interested in economics and not like, reinforcing my liberalism while padding a resume. Talking about heterodox stuff in 101 would have owned but my professor hadn't read keynes, marx, or smith (!!!) so I pretty much didn't bother asking him about it
Neither did my mom but I ask her about it every day
babyhueypnewton posted:everything stegs said is right, most kids are not future alan greenspans, most kids dont even want to be in class because they know the professor doesn't give a shit and they're forced to take econ 101. the best thing you can do is be passionate about marxisms. in fact, thats the best thing you can do in general, late capitalism above all inspires boredom and non-ideology. people are fascinated by someone with beliefs in general.
Unfortunately that's the one thing I really can't do. Teaching them about Marxist, ecological, feminist, etc. perspectives on the economy and shortcomings in orthodox economics might annoy other economists, but they see it as a mostly harmless quirk or at worst a waste of time--no great sin if that time is some undergrad's and not theirs. If I overtly push Marxism on students, however, the department would flip its shit, and I'd need to find a new career. It's considered highly improper to push any ideology in class, and hard left is definitely the most galling to liberals.
The Marxist econ professor I had in undergrad was actually extremely dispassionate about everything and just taught the material in a compelling and accessible way and let us debate it in class rather than pushing anything himself. He had a lot of impact on his students, certainly me and my wife and a lot of our friends at any rate, so I'm not quite so pessimistic about just exposing kids to the ideas and letting them hash it out between themselves.
swirlsofhistory posted:econ 101 and 102 were the worst classes i have ever taken. less than half the class showed up because they were first years, it was 8:30 am, and the only non-test marks were buggy online activities that involved copying answers out of the mankiw textbook
You go to a research school? Many econ professors at R1 schools despise teaching and will put in the absolute minimum possible effort. There can even be an incentive to be intentionally awful so you don't get teaching assignments in the future.
Those who can’t learn, study
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Anybody in formal education already obviously has a pretty weak mind so be gentle with them
I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Those who can’t do, teach
Those who can’t learn, study
wise words m8
babyhueypnewton posted:i had some woman from cyprus
Aspie_Muslim_Economist_ posted:swirlsofhistory posted:
econ 101 and 102 were the worst classes i have ever taken. less than half the class showed up because they were first years, it was 8:30 am, and the only non-test marks were buggy online activities that involved copying answers out of the mankiw textbook
You go to a research school? Many econ professors at R1 schools despise teaching and will put in the absolute minimum possible effort. There can even be an incentive to be intentionally awful so you don't get teaching assignments in the future.
it was a large research university but the econ department was nothing noteworthy, and i later took some decent upper level courses on economic history and history of economic philosophy
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Anybody in formal education already obviously has a pretty weak mind so be gentle with them
I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
I didn’t drop out though, I just didn’t go.
And I don’t need no tweedy, reedy professor bouncing bullshit that HE learnt in school off the walls, the internet is my teacher, my muse, my pederastic old greek tute
If you actually heard someway say “learning is like slavery” unironically that’s pretty funny though.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Anybody in formal education already obviously has a pretty weak mind so be gentle with them
I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
I didn’t drop out though, I just didn’t go.
And I don’t need no tweedy, reedy professor bouncing bullshit that HE learnt in school off the walls, the internet is my teacher, my muse, my pederastic old greek tute
If you actually heard someway say “learning is like slavery” unironically that’s pretty funny though.
should have gone to South Harmon Institute of Technology
babyhueypnewton posted:I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
To add to this we always found that running independent education in organisations worked best when you basically copied the education system though without assessments.
If you don't have some structure to it all including in the debates you have around topics then you end up getting comrades who literally run on an eclectic mix of nonsense.
It also serves a role in building comrades relationship to marxism as a proper source of authority which means they get a bit more confidence about it all to others and to each other which helps democratic centralism work as it should in terms of building up positions by giving space for specializing.
SovietFriends posted:comrades who literally run on an eclectic mix of nonsense
i know a tag line when i see one
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2013/01/central-planning-maybe-better-than-you-think.html
Central planning: maybe better than you think
The theoretical and the empirical arguments against central planning are weak.
Download Murrell economics and socialism
A summary from Seth Ackerman:Around the time of the Soviet collapse, the economist Peter Murrell published an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reviewing empirical studies of efficiency in the socialist planned economies. These studies consistently failed to support the neoclassical analysis: virtually all of them found that by standard neoclassical measures of efficiency, the planned economies performed as well or better than market economies.
First he reviewed eighteen studies of technical efficiency: the degree to which a firm produces at its own maximum technological level. Matching studies of centrally planned firms with studies that examined capitalist firms using the same methodologies, he compared the results. One paper, for example, found a 90% level of technical efficiency in capitalist firms; another using the same method found a 93% level in Soviet firms. The results continued in the same way: 84% versus 86%, 87% versus 95%, and so on.
Then Murrell examined studies of allocative efficiency: the degree to which inputs are allocated among firms in a way that maximizes total output. One paper found that a fully optimal reallocation of inputs would increase total Soviet output by only 3%-4%. Another found that raising Soviet efficiency to U.S. standards would increase its GNP by all of 2%. A third produced a range of estimates as low as 1.5%. The highest number found in any of the Soviet studies was 10%. As Murrell notes, these were hardly amounts “likely to encourage the overthrow of a whole socio-economic system.” (Murell wasn’t the only economist to notice this anomaly: an article titled “Why Is the Soviet Economy Allocatively Efficient?” appeared in Soviet Studies around the same time.)
Actually, the title is "Why does the Soviet Economy Appear to be Allocatively Efficient." Download Why does the soviet economy appear
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:Anybody in formal education already obviously has a pretty weak mind so be gentle with them
I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
on the other hand most people who go to college are fucking idiots too, in fact everyone is stupid, everywhere, including me
Crow posted:I guess this is a good place to post this as any
http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2013/01/central-planning-maybe-better-than-you-think.html
Central planning: maybe better than you think
The theoretical and the empirical arguments against central planning are weak.
Download Murrell economics and socialism
A summary from Seth Ackerman:Around the time of the Soviet collapse, the economist Peter Murrell published an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reviewing empirical studies of efficiency in the socialist planned economies. These studies consistently failed to support the neoclassical analysis: virtually all of them found that by standard neoclassical measures of efficiency, the planned economies performed as well or better than market economies.
First he reviewed eighteen studies of technical efficiency: the degree to which a firm produces at its own maximum technological level. Matching studies of centrally planned firms with studies that examined capitalist firms using the same methodologies, he compared the results. One paper, for example, found a 90% level of technical efficiency in capitalist firms; another using the same method found a 93% level in Soviet firms. The results continued in the same way: 84% versus 86%, 87% versus 95%, and so on.
Then Murrell examined studies of allocative efficiency: the degree to which inputs are allocated among firms in a way that maximizes total output. One paper found that a fully optimal reallocation of inputs would increase total Soviet output by only 3%-4%. Another found that raising Soviet efficiency to U.S. standards would increase its GNP by all of 2%. A third produced a range of estimates as low as 1.5%. The highest number found in any of the Soviet studies was 10%. As Murrell notes, these were hardly amounts “likely to encourage the overthrow of a whole socio-economic system.” (Murell wasn’t the only economist to notice this anomaly: an article titled “Why Is the Soviet Economy Allocatively Efficient?” appeared in Soviet Studies around the same time.)
Actually, the title is "Why does the Soviet Economy Appear to be Allocatively Efficient." Download Why does the soviet economy appear
lmao jodi dean quoting a jacobin article my pants are off already
jools posted:
Damn thats some good analysis of a blurb
jools posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:Anybody in formal education already obviously has a pretty weak mind so be gentle with them
I used to think this and romanticize independent minds but then I met a bunch of anarchists who had dropped out of school or whatever and they were really dumb. If you have the discipline to make it through Marx's Capital without school beating you down first than more power too you, it's probably much better than having to unlearn all the "common sense" you gain from being around rich people and "education." But it rarely happens, most of the time they just come up with excuses for why "learning is like slavery...man" and "we don't need books, the blac bloc is where I got my education" and then they don't know anything about the world or intelligent tactics.
on the other hand most people who go to college are fucking idiots too, in fact everyone is stupid, everywhere, including me
college is the same distribution of idiots as everywhere else minus the bottom two income brackets
academics are also disgusting because they've created a whole culture where children are tricked and pressured into paying big bucks and many years to universities. academic coercion should be a crime and american schools and professors should be divested of their ill gotten gains~
Edited by Lykourgos ()