Is capitalism / socialism 'taught' in schools?

"Education" in this country is largely set up to create workers not thinkers.

and internet trolls

School teaches a sort of folk socialism. It's most noticeable in subjects like history, which teaches economic explanations of events that are considered nonsense by actual economists, e.g. overproduction as a cause of the Great Depression.

This probably reflects the poor education of teachers themselves and of the history profession on economics.

hence why we have so much unemployment

Only memory I have of any thing at all economics related is when an english teacher describing the great depression as people sitting on their money because they are scared of spending it, creating a bad feedback loop. That in itself was neither a left or right wing statement to make. Doesn't matter if it has any bearing in reality or not.

I don't know why you think lack of economics education will only exist in teachers expressing left wing views.

Being rigorously educated in a economic theory akin to the Ptolemaic system in astronomy and deriving all kinds of complex and wonderful theories and writing long educated essays from that base still doesn't change how wrong those theories are.

If we are going to teach economists to children it needs to be part and parcel with how to think and combing the scientific method with the humanities as best we can. Not endorsing one narrow view.



I hear Putin is hiring.

Lots of economic academics are left wing.

We are talking about school teachers.

Being rigorously educated in a economic theory akin to the Ptolemaic system in astronomy and deriving all kinds of complex and wonderful theories and writing long educated essays from that base still doesn't change how wrong those theories are.

If we are going to teach economists to children it needs to be part and parcel with how to think and combing the scientific method with the humanities as best we can. Not endorsing one narrow view.

That's an Old Keynesian view, part of what I would call folk socialism. Folk socialism is not necessarily the view of any current leading intellectual socialist movement, in fact usually it's not; it's a fuzzy belief that nonetheless tends in the direction of greater state control of the economy. There are people who are not ignorant of economics who think the state should intervene in the economy, but they don't do so for folk socialist reasons. The specific interventions they advocate are also usually quite different, and more precisely limited.


Economics is a separate subject and a social science, not an art criticism free-for-all like most of the humanities. However economics is not part of the core curriculum and often not offer at all below A level, which is probably one of the most significant causes of the problem. Most people, including most teachers not specifically of economics, are simply never exposed to any economics results beyond folk economics they pick up from daily life. If we taught geography in this way we would hear a lot of teachers making statements like "Africa is the largest country in the world.".

In fact "the great depression [was caused by] people sitting on their money because they are scared of spending it, creating a bad feedback loop" is a pretty close equivalent of "Africa is the largest country in the world", in its respective field.

Don't believe you cover capitalism/socialism in A level economics. It's just economics 101 sure you have some references but it's not an in depth look.

I don't know what you mean by "cover capitalism and socialism". I wouldn't expect a scientific course to directly address itself to ideological questions, but the basic principles of economics are relevant to both.

they still won't understand after taking basic economics 101 at A level. They will know how markets work though maybe some international development/trade.

Understand what?

I would expect intelligent students to express skepticism about overproduction and money-hoarding theories of recessions after Economics 101, since both of them would need to break the stabilising feedback mechanism provided by freely set prices in conditions of changing supply and demand. Perhaps you had something else in mind.

In no way whatsoever. Plebs like me are not supposed to have any knowledge of anything political/economic related. Any political lessons are delivered subversively in a "common sense" kind of way. We are to rely on our betters and and give them our support once every 4 years based on who has the most convincing propaganda they stuff down our throats. That's my own expericne anyway being educated in a state school.

I did physics at uni and there was again no political teaching, ignoring of course all the "common sense" that you get by osmosis just by existing in society.

Although if you think teaching children to not be sexist or other such stuff is cultural Marxism then you will probbaly disagree.