Economics 101 - Last Class

I haven’t had any stories lately because I’ve been too frustrated to actually transcribe them from the margins of my notes. We hit an unexpected turn in our education when the professor who I had been teaching the class, and who offered the nuggets of wisdom I’ve written about here, took a leave of absence with a few weeks left in the semester. The department’s idea to remedy this problem was to put a neoclassical professor in his place to teach a class that was learning heterodox theory. He’s a nice guy and all, and I appreciate how he taught lessons in the awkward situation he was presented.

However, here’s the problem I have. He’s teaching the ‘markets-will-fix-themselves,’ no government intervention, jacking-off to Ayn Rand type of economics that I didn’t want to take an entire semester of. It’s been stressful trying to figure out how to ask the questions that would clusterfuck this style.

But remember the whole “natural law” thing? That was the first of many contradictions I heard between the two styles. He claimed that the markets are natural. Except in the comparison that I used, how saying that is about as equal to saying global warming doesn’t exist, now we’re all drowning in rising sea levels. But I digress.

The next thing that kind of perked my ears up a bit was this quote:
“Do you think the government is better at determining your self-interest than you? It’s kind of arrogant, don’t you think?”
Now, I’m all for freedom, don’t get me wrong. But when there are people screaming at their elected officials about “pulling the plug on grandma” and misspelling protest signs in a hilarious way, I’m inclined to think that people are too stupid to determine their self-interest. And it’s kind of arrogant to assume otherwise.

The new guy also used this metaphor about running. I don’t remember what exactly the metaphor was describing, but here are the basics:
There are two guys running a marathon race. One guy is leading by a pretty decent margin, so he stays at his current pace to pull ahead and keep his distance from his competitor. The guy behind him, though, decides to turn it up and catch up to the leader. Once he passes him and his adequately ahead, he does the same that his competitor did and relaxes his pace. The two pass each other until they come to the end and one racer wins.
Here’s my problem: Have you ever seen a marathon runner!?
At the end of the race, we’re all exhausted.

Economics 101 - Homework

Upon my arrival to class today, I was holding the Time Magazine I had received in the mail this morning. I sat down and flipped through a few pages, and as I did, my professor inquired if there was “anything relevant to the class in there.” I said maybe, and that I hadn’t really looked at it yet. He then asked, “what is that, People magazine?” to which I replied, “hahaha what!?” This led to a five minute conversation between me and my professor which ended with a brief critical analysis of how Time Magazine keeps commercial readers while still appealing to intellectual readers.

Soon after, my backpack exploded as he started lecturing and I dug out my notebook, textbook, and pen. After class lecture, my fellow students filed out of the room while I still rushed to jam my shit back into my bag.

I ended up being the last person to leave, and my professor asked what my major was. I told him it was English and he replied that it was “real important stuff.” Because obviously, unlike economists, English majors do important things that matter. All elitism aside, he asked me who my favorite author was and it being a monday and all, I blanked. I just completely lost any thoughts that were swimming around my head. I said that, “I really like F. Scott Fitzgerald” because I do, and then I said “Tolstoy” like a moron. In reality, I have read about ten pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I really did like those ten pages, though, and I meant what I said. My professor asked if I had ever read anything by Dostoyevsky, and I said no, but they’re on my list of books I need to read (which they are). He told me to check out The Brothers Karamazov, which I have on my bookshelf. I said I would, and headed to lunch.

Long story short, I’m considering this my new homework assignment for my economics class, which is weird considering that other than this class, I have books to read in every other class I’m taking.

I have a feeling I’ll probably finish the Dostoyevsky before any other ones I’m supposed to read.