I think economics, like philosophy, cannot be taught to nineteen-year olds. . .comes directly from a socialized economy (called a family), and has no feel on his pulse for those tragedies of adult life that economists call scarcity and choice.
Thanks to a commenter for reminding me about the article, which I recall reading a few years ago.
I am not as pessimistic as that. But this may be an instance where the demand side of the market is actually in control. That is, students feel like they are learning something when they can define and use economic jargon and diagrams. Deeper, more philosophical points, like the way that economic growth resembles evolution, or the challenge of achieving cooperation in large-scale society, don’t sell as well to a 19-year-old market.
You have over stretched, malignant government.
Messages are not getting through, regardless of age. I know 50 year olds engaging in the same ritualistic, behavior barely learning. Like, me for example.
Government, a republic, trying to operate it this scale, reaches a point where it becomes malignant, social progress stops.
Deeper, more philosophical points, like the way that economic growth resembles evolution, or the challenge of achieving cooperation in large-scale society, don’t sell as well to a 19-year-old market.
You have to start some time and I thought Economics made the most sense to me than any other Social Sciences with the basic ideas of Opportunity Cost, and simple Demand & Supply curves. Although you can argue the issues of Macroeconomics there was a certain accounting logic to the analysis.
Secondly, there are a lot at 19 that know ‘scarcity and choice.’
McCloskey’s alluding to Keats: “For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.”
Here’s another line from the same 1818 letter: “I may have read these things before, but I never had even a thus dim perception of them.”
Also: “An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking people — it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the Burden of the Mystery.”
Hayek used the metaphor of physical pain, too, when he said that “the one thing of which we must be painfully aware at the present time — a fact which no writer on these problems should fail to impress upon his readers — is how little we really know of the forces which we are trying to influence by deliberate management; so little indeed that it must remain an open question whether we would try if we knew more.”
But some 19-year-olds know more than others. Keats had already lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was 14.
“growth resembles evolution, or the challenge of achieving cooperation in large-scale society”
We have diagrams and jargon for that also.
From the youngest age, I would offer to match my kids dollar for dollar to purchase an item that, for example, caught his/her eye in the grocery checkout line. Each would have had limited funds available to spend, acquired through age-suitable household tasks or birthday/Christmas gifts. Once they opted to buy a toy or whatever, it was theirs for better or for worse: there was no “take care of that, it was expensive,” or “don’t do that, you’ll break it,” from me.
They learned to consider: level of desire for item, potential lifespan of item, potential length of time of personal enjoyment, alternative uses of their limited funds, etc.
It worked very well, from that bag of little green army men up through purchase of a used car during high school years.
I’m not well-versed in my grandkids’ current activities, but for example, one (15 yo) saved his summer grass-cutting earnings and purchased a quite expensive custom hockey stick, and he and his 13 yo brother have to pay for their own “Fortnite” playing time. The other set of g’boys (13 & 11) have worked out a landscaping deal with their nearby grandfather to mow, trim bushes, rake sand, and general cleanup on a bi-weekly basis. Their g’father supervises & checks them out on the initial activity, and afterwards they are expected to meet his [very exacting] standards. The past 8 months of the agreement (they live in Phoenix, so landscaping is year ’round), both parties have been satisfied. Oh, and they are extremely well-compensated, even as they undercut the local professional landscaping company bids for the work.
You cannot convince me that a 19 year old cannot understand basic economics, if it’s taught and demonstrated on a level with their limited experience, and/or expressed in terms that are meaningful in their world. They use basic economic concepts in their everyday lives, they just don’t know that they do….
In their public school elementary curriculum, my g’kids are exposed to very basic algebra concepts in third grade — why not introduce economics early on, as well?
I’m quite sure most 19 yo teens can well understand the difference between campsite econ and coat creation (or pencil creating) economic activity.
Dierdre (then Donald) talks about how the Naturals might be able to be taught, but how few of them there are. In the paper, she notes that many many case studies are responded to by students as “too hard”.
Well, if economics is like allocation at camping, it is well within normal college scope. But if it is specialization like in pencil creation, plus coordination thru trade, plus capital and labor and organization alternative choices, with resource and labor prices all constantly changing, then the “full scope” is likely too much for Econ 101.
Yet, the current paradigm in teaching is more “equilibrium” rather than specialization and trade, and thus the case studies might well be “too hard”.
Where are the good open sources tests of “what economists know”? I think the solving of the case study questions is the best metric available now, but perhaps its a good metric of a not so good version of economics.
She has a new article coming out, “Speech Runs the Economy”, about how persuasive work has been increasing, now up to about 30% of GNP. (Journal of Law and Liberty, 2019)
I might agree with this post, but there is also an insufferable snottiness in it.
“Those people who have different points of view than me on macroeconomics cannot understand the topic—such as 19-year-olds.”
Oooo-boy.
In general, I am a free-markets kind of guy, I think there are exceptions when free markets do not work. Pollution is an obvious example. For people with religious beliefs, healthcare might be another example.
Some highly intelligent people disagree with me on macroeconomic issues. So what?