Let's settle the scores; the politicians and bureaucrats win since they claim success based on programs implemented, the children lose due to additional years in state institutions, the teachers and their unions win as more money is pumped into the sinking barge, and the taxpayer — William Graham Sumner's forgotten man — continues to pay the bill year after year.
Unfortunately, my experience with current undergrads is proving me wrong.
Since abilities and interests are naturally diverse, a drive toward making people equal in all or most respects is necessarily a leveling downward. The key issue in the entire discussion is simply this: shall the parent or the State be the overseer of the child?
My goal with these fifth graders was not just to introduce them to the basics of economic science, but to inoculate them against future attempts to teach them bad economics. By showing them that trade, money, savings, competition, and prices all have distinctly human origins and purposes, I hoped to help them make better sense out of the “economics” they will some day be exposed to.
Mises's students followed up on many of the ideas listed here, other topics have been explored in a half-century of economic writing, while many more are left undone. May they inspire the Misesians of this generation to see the Austrian School as a research paradigm that is constantly developing.
From the book For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, as narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.
I wanted to show students that economics stems from ordinary human behavior in the real world we face every day. By showing them that trade, money, savings, competition, and prices all have distinctly human origins and purposes, I hoped to help them make better sense out of the "economics" they will some day be exposed to.
You hear it from them all the time; teachers just want a fair wage. Oh, well who doesn’t?
