VCE Stuff > VCE Economics

Socialist bias in VCE Economics

<< < (2/3) > >>

Eriny:
Oh please. When I was doing economics assessors gave some advice about answering questions. At the time WorkChoices was a key economic issue. They said that you can be pro, con or neither in answering how it'll achieve the Australian governments economic goals, it doesn't matter as long as you demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. Economics teachers aren't socialists, you just have to get used to the idea that it's possible to provide a good response that does have a leftist slant.

Don't judge the curriculum when you haven't actually done the course. Furthermore, there was nothing in the article to suggest that the teaching would be 'socialist', just that things like the credit crisis highlights that the free market isn't perfect (OMFG, how could they????!?!?). These debates have been going on for ages and frankly, it's a good thing that younger students are able to engage with them.

costargh:
I just hope that people aren't led to believe that the credit crisis was as a result of a failure in the free market. To me, that would be wrong and irresponsible of teachers to explain it in this way.

Collin Li:
Yeah, read the article. I'm attacking the article. I don't believe the free market is perfect. It doesn't need to be for economists to conclude that government intervention is worse.

Also, where is the monopoly or the externality in this failure? (VCE Economics limits market failures to these two)

If you are a Keynesian, you may say that this is a business cycle market failure. However, that argument should not be made without the complex groundwork of that model. In a sense, the Keynesian model shows that the business cycle is a rational outcome of shocks (using neo-Keynesian models). Business cycle analyses have not been done in second year macroeconomics, so they shouldn't be done in VCE Economics either.

brendan:

--- Quote from: humphdogg on October 06, 2008, 02:16:19 pm ---how conservative most economics departments at Australian universities are (with good reason).

--- End quote ---

They are not "conservative" by any sensible measure.


--- Quote from: humphdogg on October 06, 2008, 02:16:19 pm ---just merely suggesting a swing back towards the centre (i.e. slightly less free market, but free enough nevertheless).

--- End quote ---

If you actually look at it, it is quite biased. It was never "free market" in the first place. It's full of policy questions asking you how government can control this and plan that. It doesn't make the important distinction between positive economics "what is" and normative economics "what ought to be".


--- Quote from: Eriny on October 06, 2008, 07:13:30 pm ---These debates have been going on for ages and frankly, it's a good thing that younger students are able to engage with them.

--- End quote ---

The only problem is they aren't taught the fundamental tools that actually allow you to analyze whether one arrangement is more "efficient" than another. I think it is way to suspicious that they ask you many questions about "market failure" but hardly any on government failure and of how government intervention can reduce total welfare.

humph:

--- Quote from: Brendan on October 07, 2008, 12:27:25 am ---
--- Quote from: humphdogg on October 06, 2008, 02:16:19 pm ---how conservative most economics departments at Australian universities are (with good reason).

--- End quote ---

They are not "conservative" by any sensible measure.

--- End quote ---
I mean ostensibly right-wing economically; that is, heavily biased towards a libertarian view (well, this is the case at ANU). I suppose conservative was a bad choice of words (suggests socially conservative really).

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page