Economics courses do not teach how the economy works.

Rather, they teach a mathematical justification of the status quo.

Here is a very good 18-minute video by an economics student that every proponent and defender of capitalist economics should see.

 

Economics should be about evaluating alternatives.

 

economics obviously should be 100% about why capitalism is better than libsocialism. That is by far the major issue we face.

 

That is mostly impossible in the context of any economy. Economics will always be taught in support/defense of the sanctioned economic system. It is necessary to select your "alternative" and find a source that teaches from that viewpoint.

 

I appreciate the point and I certainly agree that there is a pro-technical malaise in economics. But two points, at least for my personal bias, stand out:

(1) When I was a student , all those years ago, I was still taught history of economic thought. That's still taught in lots of places, but often replaced with economic history.

(2) I mentioned in a different thread how I employ economics graduates. Their technical skills are bloody useful!

 

Capitalism at its core is about evaluating alternatives. Educate yourself about it.

 

Is this the Trump university?

 

University should be capitalized...

 

Not for Trump surely? Crikey, you have some strange ideas!

 

Hardly! Let's see you support that with any documentation.

 

Yeah but it's not.

 

You claim to know what economics is NOT, can you then tell us what it IS?

 

Sure. Read the title of the thread.

 

Since that's really about how good socialism is, and that democracy leads to socialism, I figured it would be accurate to respond with an explanation of what those really mean. Economics within a socialist society was never really addressed. I hope this video does address it.



Interesting movie for you, too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041495/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_70

 

The title does not answer the question, so you are able to say what economics is NOT without knowing what it IS?
Ignore that question, I think your answer above was sufficient.

 

The bottom line is that in class society, all economics is taught from a class perspective.

 

All I remember from economics in college was the graph with supply and demand. And the OP video said that it was a lie. Mind blown.

 

g

 

class obsession is of course a Marxist perspective. Nice to always have the death cult that killed 120 million always represented here. In truth economics is taught from a basic political perspective. i.e. freedom versus govt

 

its a social study about whether goods and services are best provided by govt or by freedom.

 

Economics is about trade offs

 

Kode's socialist pipe dream would do away with private property and replace market forces with central planning. Disasterous.

Some socialist safety nets are desireable, as long as there is enough capitalist success to pay for them.

 

Please don't put words in my mouth. You don't know what I would do. And in fact, you are completely wrong.

 

Kode is a 100% standard libcommie now pretending there is something more to it than that because Marxism killed 120 million. Why defend Marx unless you are a Marxist?

 

IMO, the vast majority of the economists promoted by the mainstream media are nothing else than miserable clowns. Their main point is always that:
- getting the money from the poor and giving it to the rich is very important for improving the economy. In the Irish Famine (1850), the government did the same, starving a million people (20%) to death.
- getting the money from the rich and giving it back to the poor is the biggest disaster possible and it can ruin and collapse the economy.
Basically, the economic "education" means to teach the future economists to think like this and to fill their minds with all kind of meaningless and complicated formula, in order to increase their confusion. The more confused they are, the more they believe and spread any nonsense.

They spread a lot of lies like:
- "Speculation is good because it creates jobs" - while in reality the best selling point of the people who promote capitalism is that the system will bring you the best prices. A total contradiction.
- "There is no such things as a free meal" - in reality, for the rich there is always a free meal: bailouts, subventions, fat contracts, low taxes etc.
- "If you work hard, you will make it" - in reality, if you work hard, the rich will work you to death
- "It's ok to exploit the people in the poor countries because we create jobs, and we also increase our living standards" - the poor countries can create jobs by simply making land reforms and giving land to the poor, as Taiwan did in 1950. Or the Western countries can buy land in the poor countries and rent it for free to the poor people in those countries. As for the living standards, they are reduced, since more people are sent in unemployment, as a result of outsourcing the jobs in those poor countries.
- "the greed and the desire to accumulate wealth is the engine of growth and of the economy" - while in fact, the vast amount of private investors are actually happy to make just a decent living from their business. The desire to accumulate wealth was never the engine of the economy - most of the people only want to have a comfortable and decent life. The whole idea that capitalism has to be based on greed is simply idiotic and it contradicts this basic reality fact.

The corporate culture also spreads a lot of lies like:
- "Without poverty there is no economy"
- "Corruption is good because the money return in the economy" - while in reality the money go to tax havens and into the banks of Switzerland