Why do I think a basic understanding of Economics is important for everybody?
It’s an area of the political realm we just can’t avoid. Quote from the preface of the textbook:
“Most of us are necessarily ignorant of many complex fields, from botany to brain surgery. As a result, we simply do not attempt to operate in, or comment on, those fields. However, every voter and every politician that they vote for affects economic policies. We cannot opt out of economic issues and decisions. Our only options are to be informed, uninformed, or misinformed, when making our choices on issues and candidates.”
So to increase the chances that you and your students are informed in these areas I highly recommend an economics class. It doesn't need to be math-based economics with charts and graphs and equations--it's much more important to understand economic theory and thinking.
Through the study of economics students and parents will hopefully get into a mindset of looking at political and economic problems/solutions and asking the basic questions: "Compared to What? At What Cost? What hard evidence do you have?"
Structure of the class for us
Used Thomas Sowell. “Basic Economics.” as a textbook. Sowell is a brilliant economist and social philosopher and is currently 90+ years old. You can find videos on YouTube of him being interviewed by Peter Robinson on Uncommon Knowledge. You can get a sense of his style of directness and dealing with facts and data from those videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGYl17DiEwo
The book is a Preface + 27 chapters, divided into 7 parts. We typically did 2 chapters a week, but some chapters were bigger so sometimes we'd only do 1 chapter. I did include a couple supplementary videos to break up the weeks. Each of the 7 parts has a set of 15 discussion questions to review. These are not softball questions either; we'll look at some of them in more detail to give you a flavor and you'll see what I mean. Every couple weeks we'd go through the provided questions as a class discussion and re-read any areas that the students weren't comfortable with.
http://tsowell.com/BE_Questions5.pdf
“The most obvious difference between this book and other introductory economics books is that Basic Economics has no graphs or equations. It is also written in plain English, rather than in economic jargon, so that it can be readily understood by people with no previous knowledge of economics. This includes both the general public and beginning students in economics."
Chapter 1 is an intro that gives terms and high level concepts for the foundations used throughout the rest of the book. “Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.”
Part 1 is about Prices and Markets. What are prices? How do they work in a market economy? How do they work in socialist planned economy? Costs vs Prices? Price controls.
Part 2 is about Industry and Commerce. Why do Businesses grow and fail? What happens with profits and losses? Middlemen, specialization, big businesses, monopolies, regulation, anti-trust, and government institutions
Part 3 is about Work and Pay. Productivity, income "distributions," capital, discrimination, minimum wage, unemployment, working conditions, collective bargaining, and exploitation.
Part 4 is about Time and Risk. Investments, returns, speculation, inventory, natural resources, stocks, bonds, insurance, hazards, uncertainty, time and money.
Part 5 is about The National Economy. Measuring National Output, money, inflation, deflation, banking system, government functions, corruption, property rights, government revenue, expenditures, budgets, market failures and government failures.
Part 6 is about The International Economy. International trade, advantages, restrictions, transfers of wealth, international investment, foreign aide, international disparities in wealth, and cultures.
Part 7 is about Special Economic Issues. Market myths, non-profit organizations, brands, non-market values, morality, history of economics, and closing thoughts.
Economic thinking is important for everybody!
