Teaching economics for the 21st century
In the economics classroom here at Schumacher College https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses/economics-for-transition, we are drawing on the thinking of Otto Scharmer https://www.presencing.com/ego-to-eco/3-divides(link is external), exploring the three great divides that characterise the times in which we live: separation of self from self (spiritual/cultural alienation); self from others (social divide); and self from the more-than-human world (ecological divide).
Today, the enquiry is on the self-from-others divide, with a strong focus on trends in, and the impact of inequality. Graphs and statistics aplenty as we unpick the complexity of the various trends: Kuznets curve, Gini co-efficients, Palma curves. We explore contradictory trends in the gap between rich and poor across regions and historical periods, seeking out patterns and empirically valid conclusions that may be drawn from them. Picketty rubs shoulders with Friedman.
Trying to disentangle the various assumptions and theoretical frameworks that account for such wildly differing interpretations of the achievements of the just-ended Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/(link is external). Examining different theories by which we can evaluate the appropriateness and likely success of the newly-launched Sustainable Development Goals http://www.sustainabledevelopment2015.org/(link is external).
So far, so good. This looks and feels like an exemplary exercise in the study of heterodox economics of just the sort that economics students around the world have been demanding in ever more strident terms in recent years http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/economics-students-overhaul-subject-teaching(link is external). Multiple perspectives are opened for exploration and the pretence that there is one single, value-free, objectively correct position is abandoned. We are deep into the realm of values.
And then, we observe that we have spent the entire day talking about inequality and its impacts. There is a general consensus that while we are intellectually stimulated by the material, in some sense perhaps cleverer, we have not been moved by it.
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