Thursday, September 27, 2007

Could you be a high school economics teacher?



I thought I could until I opened this study guide. I'm pretty sure I'd flunk.

Actually, all of these answers suck, but the right answer is too complicated to make funny.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More ideologically tinged oversimplifications of economic theory: free market good; socialism bad.

September 27, 2007 at 12:03 PM
vera said...

Faith-you better hope one of those middle of nowhere schools call you because a high school economics teacher is not in your future.

I know it's surprising, but the government is a little more sophisticated on this one than it first appears.

The "correct" answer is actually not "free market", but "choice". Of course, what choice implies is where it starts to go down an ugly road.

It's not like socialism is the clear answer here either- we both surely know that socialism can't be built out of scarcity.

But that's the kicker. Why can't our kids discuss why scarcity still exists.

We have tremendous wealth and technological advancements that could be used to meet people needs today. Malthus was wrong! The naysayers today are wrong! Of course, I'm not actually delusional- I realize that there are some limited resources, but I still believe that human potential is limitless and that if we had a cooperative society we could find solutions.

Of course we have scarcity when all our work and energy goes to massive profits, to trillion dollar wars, to bullshit things like advertising. When food is used as an economic weapon rather than something to be consumed

That's why we have scarcity. Capitalism reinforces it by its very nature.

That's why I argue for another option--revolution.

Told you it wouldn't be funny.

September 28, 2007 at 7:57 PM

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