The Problem with Modern Economics Education

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I’ve been recently doing a deep dive into the Austrian School with one of my classes. We’ve talked in-depth about one of the central problems of Keynesian theories: The notion that economics is a hard science -like chemistry or physics- where you can always predict the outcome based on certain hard and fast rules, formulas, and calculations. That is, so long as you produce the right input of data and/or policies.

The central problem with this idea is that economics is, at its core, a study of the choices individuals make when it comes to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. The word economy is literally derived from the Greek word “oikos” which means household, and the the Greek word “nomos”, which means law or custom. Economics starts, therefore, with the ordering of household customs.

Consequently, central planning is doomed to failure as it is impossible to accurately weigh all the variables necessary to ensure the most flourishing outcome for an entire population. The bigger the population, the more impossible such a feat becomes. If anyone of us jumps off the Empire State building, the results will be the same no matter who we are. Gravity is a fact of hard science. The same cannot be said of depositing $100,000 into the bank accounts of as few as 25 people, let alone 300 million! The results will vary quite widely.

All of this is a lead up to a very old episode of the Phil Donahue Show from 1979 or 1980, featuring the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Milton Friedman. I had my students watch this today, as we rapidly approach the end of the school year. The coherent and articulate expression of the principles we have been taught was actually quite fascinating to them, and they enjoyed immensely to my relief, as I was slightly concerned that a 1980 television talk show, with its dull lighting, and people actually listening to one another, might bore them. It didn’t! I’m posting that interview here because I think it’s worth sharing.

Why History and Logic Matter

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I originally popped up here to write a sort of pre-post-mortem of my experience homeschooling a child from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation. However, that post will will have to wait until next week; or perhaps even closer to her graduation date next month since I am totally distracted by this ad (h/t: Will S):

I was instantly reminded of this quote attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, the 18th century judge and historian:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

This is why I try to be thorough when explaining the forms of government, economic systems, and historical trajectories of socialist revolutions to my students. The lies are so pretty, that without a base of knowledge to weigh them against, people, by the millions, traipse happily over the sides of the cliffs.

Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday.

What I’ve Learned Via My Foray Into the Twitterverse

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Or is it the “X-verse”?

One of the things I have repeatedly said (which some of you may remember) is that Twitter is in many if not most ways, an enemy of thoughtful discourse. This can easily be said about just about every variety of social media, but some are worse that others.

There’s Instagram, which I have been on for several years, though I rarely post anything. Its primary function in my life is keep up with family members around the country, church family photos, and to read the latest from the few Christian ministries I think produce sound doctrinal content. Before I continue, yes. I know that Instagram is owned by Facebook.

However, there’s Facebook proper, in it’s original format. I’ve never held an account and I eschewed it early on after learning of family feuds breaking out because one family member didn’t like something another one said about this or that topic. Also, I have the phone numbers of the few people from my high school that I have any interest in keeping up with. I’m generally not the Memory Lane type, so wondering “Whatever happened to so and so?” has never motivated me to take to Facebook.

And then, there’s Twitter. I avoided Twitter for a very long time. I only made an account because the format changed so that you couldn’t even read interesting threads unless you had an account. I still think it does more harm than good, due to its oversized reach when compared to the numbers of Americans who actually use the platform.

However, I also figured something out that’s pretty startling. One more than one occasion, I have known of people who wanted to make a formal complaint or request to their local governing officials. After doing things the old fashioned way (calling, emailing, etc), they only got responses when they took their complaint to social media (either Twitter or Facebook). Not only did they get swift replies, but they got replies from people who actually had the power to get something done, and got it done due to their keen awareness of the proximity of the voter who reached out. That, my friends, is very good to know!

Lastly, the simple fact of the matter is that news breaks on Twitter first. I’m not referring only to national and international news, but again; local stuff. One more than one occasion my husband has run into weird traffic at a weird time of day and called to ask if there was an accident since he couldn’t find the info on the radio. Twitter gave me the 411 (accidents, construction, etc) in less than a minute.

The above examples are the back story of how I went from “Twitter is evil!” to seeing some usefulness in it. I follow my county mayor even though I didn’t vote for him. I follow my district’s school board representative, even though we don’t use government schools. I follow our governor, and a few other government representatives and news outlets. However, and here’s where the learning part comes in: like Alice down the rabbit whole, I started following a bunch of other folks and found myself realizing once again, how unfruitful the Internet can be when it comes to the public discourse.

Among the non-essential accounts I follow are my favorite Reformed Christian content outlets such as Canon Press and Founders Ministries, as well as specific Bible teachers. There are few news outlets that I like, and a few independent content creators as well. The latter is mostly men and women of a traditionalist. anti-feminist mindset. Lastly, there are the political types, and I need not say more about that. So, what have I learned? Here goes:

  • Twitter denizens who spend exorbitant amounts of time there don’t seem to realize that things that blow up Twitter are often never even heard of among the 75% of Americans who are not active on Twitter. Being a part of two sizeable, highly conservative, traditional communities has proven this to be true.
  • The Twitterverse has elevated the picking of nits to an art form. One of the most glaring examples of this is the near constant bickering in Reformed Christian Twitter on the subject of so-called Christian Nationalism. I have a position (pro), but at this point I’m convinced that it doesn’t matter because by the time enough Christians are ever convinced that laws based on Christian morality are not oppressive, America will have fallen.
  • Race consciousness is dialed up to 11. It’s one of the things that makes me grateful that Twitter is used by only roughly 23% of Americans and that broadcast news has largely fallen out of favor with most people on the left and the right. While it is impossible to miss attempts to use ethnic differences to draw our attention away from the fact that we are being pillaged and plundered by our leaders, it’s not as bad as it would be if more people were on Twitter.
  • Twitter’s battle of the sexes makes the early “red pill” blogosphere look like kindergarten stuff. Both the feminists and the masculinists (is that redundant?) use the most inflammatory rhetoric they can to boost engagement with their content. The toxicity is enough to make you wonder how we are still propagating the species, until you remember that:
  • Twitter is NOT AT ALL representative of what people are thinking and talking about in the real world. Yes, in certain circles (ours for example) many of the hot topics are discussed and touched upon, but not nearly with the same level of nitpicking, taking sides without nuance, or allowances for human realities.
  • There is some utility to social media sites such as Twitter if you can approach them with a measured assessment of things, and temper your time there. One of the things I have found myself noting over the past 11 months is that drastically reducing my time online has been -easily- one of the best decisions I have made. It makes it much easier to look at the topics du jour from a detached perspective which allows for noting the beam in my own eye before obsessing over the speck in my brother’s.

Whelp. That’s what I’ve learned from Twitter over the past year. If there are more things to notice, feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Beauty Break: Creation’s Splendor

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Natural beauty that is. There are few places more pleasant in winter than south South Florida, which is why it’s a favorite destination for my husband and me for our anniversary getaways in February. I thought I’d share a few snapshots. Because we always go to a different beach town each time, I know you haven’t seen these before. Enjoy!

Can you see her bright blue eggs?

Sea foam
I think we woke them!
I never tire of the iguanas of S. Florida

Very large gator

Hope this amateur photo exhibition adds some sunshine to the beginning of your week.

Happy Monday!

Valentine’s Day?

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This is couple of days late, but Happy Valentine’s Day to all the lovers who celebrated.

It’s that time of year again. Husbands far and wide were asked on Wednesday, “So. What are you doing for your wife for Valentine’s Day?” My husband was asked this question several times, and several times he answered, “Nothing really. My wife isn’t into Valentine’s Day. We’ll celebrate a milestone anniversary this weekend anyway.”

Each time he was met with a mix of amazement and wee bits of jealousy that he gets to sit this one out. Nothing new there. However, there was one thing I noticed.

No one, no not one single solitary person, asked me nor has asked me in many years, “So. What are you doing for your husband for Valentine’s Day?” I’ve not had any opportunity in a long time to express my general dismissal of the holiday for reasons I’ll not get into here. The point of this post was to ask a question to the minute numbers of readers here:

Why are men asked this question so much more often than women are?

Iconic Characters: Mr. Knightley

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Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightley in BBC's Emma

Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightley in BBC’s Emma

Having agonized- that’s hyperbole- over whether I will be so bothered as to ever review Jane Austen’s more acclaimed novels, I have concluded that the answer is no. We may certainly at some point visit one or two that have not been adapted by a major Hollywood studio. However, there isn’t much that an average reader and novice writer with scant literary knowledge or insights into life in 18th century England can say about those books that hasn’t already been said. I have recently read a few posts from another blogger which present a well rounded exploration of Jane Austen’s works:

Three perspectives from Adventures at Keeping House:

The Real Villain of Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice:The Most Unrealistic of All Jane Austen’s Love Stories

The Inherent Liberalism of Pride and Prejudice

I trust that there you will find plenty of food for thought and controversy to mine for die hard Austen fans. Not to mention the aforementioned are much more articulate and knowledgeable than I.

I do however, have a very strong opinion on one matter that I want to address in an Waiting+For+Mr.+Darcyattempt at cathartic release after seeing yet another woman wearing an insufferable t-shirt. It is with this business of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice extolled as the most manly and admirable leading man in all of Austen’s works. I patently disagree.

The most alluring male lead in all of Jane Austen’s works that I have read is without question Mr. Knightley from her 1815 published work, Emma. While the title character and leading lady is often very hard to take, Mr. Knightley is a breath of fresh air among male characters of any era.

He is confident, direct, and never fails to call Emma to account and a higher standard of behavior when she gets out of line. In other words, he is exactly the kind of  man we post-modern sassy women need in a husband rather than a steady dose of  Darcy’s “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you”.

Contrast with this description of Mr. Knightley, the man to whom Emma is eventually wed:

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body.

“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley.

While Emma may not be Austen’s most acclaimed work, it is in my opinion certainly the most entertaining and humorous, and the one book in which she provides us an example of a man, stalwart, and unafraid to confront folly in the life and actions of his intended.

That in my opinion, makes Mr. Knightley rather than Mr. Darcy, Jane Austen’s most iconic male character.