Shaping the Global Economy through Textbooks
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Stefan Theil has written an indictment of the French and German educational systems in the January/February issue of Foreign Policy that expresses one of the fundamental problems with educational curricula. Theil is the European economics editor for Newsweek and points out the anti-capitalist rhetoric used in standard textbooks in the Old World. He speaks about educational language that discourages small business growth, encourages a reliance on the welfare state and helps continue the form of static economics that harmed both countries in the Cold War.
Theil points out THE issue in modern economics which is the dearth of instruction on economic systems. No economist would completely endorse mercantilism in this day and age but it is an important system to understand because it ushered in modern capitalism. Western economics teachers and professors may not like communism but their students need to know about the perversion of Karl Marx’s ideas. While French and German educators may not like capitalism, they are setting their students back by not providing a full picture of the modern world.
A generation of students who do not understand economic distinctions will become a generation of leaders who cannot speak the same language as their counterparts. I think the media, whether it is mainstream outlets or alternative sources, can play a role in fighting the isolation of economic education. Nightly news shows can stop placing blame and rewards for the global economy on a single individual or organization. Newspapers can provide tutorials on trade deficits, exchange rates and other economic issues that trickle down to the average consumer. Theil is correct in criticizing France and Germany but public education in the United States is suffering from similar problems. We need to expand economic education beyond the bounds of the classroom
