Shocking research on continental European economics teaching
A recent article in the Financial Times showed that French and German schoolbooks demonize enterprise. As the article put it:
“Students learn that companies destroy jobs, while government policy creates them. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game. If this is the belief system within which most students develop intellectually, is it any wonder French and German reformers are so easily shouted down?”
You can read the full article at:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f03314e-bd3e-11dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html
It’s pretty much the same thing in most of Scandinavia.
When I was in high school (just after the fall of the Soviet Union) in Sweden, our schoolbooks compared communism with capitalism and democracy by saying that:
“It is unclear which system is really best, but communism is definitely the fairer and juster system”.
Funny, I encountered this article yesterday:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4095
From a French textbook:
“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer.”
Had a very interesting conversation with a friend of my Norwegian neighbor. Their attitude there is that their socialist wunderland is inherently superior to the US system. At the same time they tell you that they have to speak english because there are only 4 million Norwegians. Of course this is because they need to economically plug into the most largest economy in the world. MMmmm…a little conflict in those 2 ideas. By the end of the conversation I had her ( the brutish norwegian gal ) admitting she did not believe in democracy. That somehow government is magically populated with people with bright shining hearts with minds of super computers that gosh darnit just seem to know what is good for us. I’ve included a link to my blog that recounts the conversation. I think its probably typical. A summary of my response is ***Don’t you think living in a state where its all so darned safe is dreadfully boring?*** But then they know better than I do. I should let them do the thankin’ for me.