socialism in the classroom?
A letter to the editor of the WSJ from someone who understands economics (hat tip: Linda Christiansen)!
Perhaps I should put this on my syllabi-- or at least, it'd be a good illustration of the practical/efficiency problems with socialism and high marginal tax rates on income.
I teach eighth-graders about Karl Marx's "take from each according to their means and give to each according to their needs."
The teacher takes away 20 points on a test from those who got 95 and gives those points to those who had 55. Therefore everybody now has 75. OK class, will the 55 students study for the next test? No! Why bother studying (working) if it will be given to you. And what will the 95 students do? The same thing. Why bother working (studying) when it will be taken away. What will happen to the class average (the standard of living) on future tests? The average will go down. Eighth-graders understand this.
George Cull Peninsula, Ohio
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 2:08 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Socialism was injected quite often in 1996-1998 when I was at the University of Louisville.
My Geography of Russia class was not so much about Geography as it was a chance to discuss communism, socialism and marxism and how they could have worked. I'm talking detailed depictions of how resources were and could have been distributed. Keep in mind this was about the time that Russia was splintered into about 10 new countries. (All the stans in the south and the Estonia, Latvia, etc in the baltics)
My Enviromental Sociology book (might be the only book I still hold onto just to verify this fact) had a page in which it stated that capitalism and protestantism were the two biggest causes of enviromental destruction via pollution and depletion. I was Catholic at the time and still was amazed at this liberal professors audacity.
My English class I spent writing essays about preselected Mother Jones magazine articles on congresss intervention in baseball, abortion, capital punishment and affirmative action. I spent all my time defending my conservative ideals. If I had a dollar for every cliche, anecdotal and weak argument correction on my papers, I'd have opted out of the student loans and pell grants.
Thank goodness the rest of my classes I can remember were in business school.
If this was 10-12 years ago, I can't imagine the crap my two brothers are being force fed on a daily basis.
Eric, with your conservative ideals and Christian Worldview, you must stick out like a blue firetruck or a football bat in the world of academia.
We'll keep you in prayer.
Bryce, I appreciate any prayers, but my setting is relatively easy to deal with.
I'm an economist-- and we're known for a thorough study of costs and benefits, in particular of markets and govt. Although some economists come to different inferences, after much study, most have far more faith in markets than in government (in most contexts).
Beyond that, I'm at a small regional campus of a public university in the nation's heartland. Typically, these campuses are rather diverse (ironically) and moderate in their political and social views.
How would you explain the highly liberal bias of schools like UofL and Bellarmine in the area?
It's not like they are in the Northeast. I attended both and as I said before was shocked at the extremely liberal socialist tendencies of the professors.
I'll have to advise more kids look to IUS instead of the more liberal colleges and universities.
It certainly depends on the field, so what fields are you talking about?
I'd also guess that a stronger research institution like U of L would tend to be more liberal than a stronger teaching school like IUS.
There are many reasons to choose IUS over U of L. They have more programs, but our quality is generally higher (given more interest in teaching and smaller class sizes). For example, our MBA program is rated higher-- 18th in the nation among part-time programs. I also hear a lot about our greater attention to customer service.
Greater attention to customer service touches my heart strings. I love companies that focus on customer service.
Of course the humanities and social sciences, but everyone is exposed to these classes regardless of their major.
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