A Textbook Case
The tone is stark, dire:
It reads, perhaps deliberately, like one of those David Horowitz shockers about liberal educators, which usually come with a fundraising appeal attached.
But it's no right-wing screed. This is a sober analysis in "Foreign Policy" by an overseas "Newsweek" editor. And the subject is not American education, but French and German.
American students, as the author points out incidentally, don't know much about economics. Only about a third ever even take a class in it. For once, though, I don't feel so ashamed of my national education trends. Better to know little about anything than to know a great deal about destructive propaganda:
Contrasted to their relatively uneducated American peers, he writes, French students "do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools."
Germany, it seems, is in a similar situation:
The article makes the point that these texts are not presented as contrarian or alternative positions, or matters brought up to inspire lively classroom debate and spark deeper research. They're canonical.
Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts.
It reads, perhaps deliberately, like one of those David Horowitz shockers about liberal educators, which usually come with a fundraising appeal attached.
But it's no right-wing screed. This is a sober analysis in "Foreign Policy" by an overseas "Newsweek" editor. And the subject is not American education, but French and German.
American students, as the author points out incidentally, don't know much about economics. Only about a third ever even take a class in it. For once, though, I don't feel so ashamed of my national education trends. Better to know little about anything than to know a great deal about destructive propaganda:
“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities. The past 20 years have “doubled wealth, doubled unemployment, poverty, and exclusion, whose ill effects constitute the background for a profound social malaise,” the text continues. Because the 21st century begins with “an awareness of the limits to growth and the risks posed to humanity [by economic growth],” any future prosperity “depends on the regulation of capitalism on a planetary scale.” Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972.
Contrasted to their relatively uneducated American peers, he writes, French students "do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools."
Germany, it seems, is in a similar situation:
Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed “The Revival of Manchester Capitalism,” “The Brazilianization of Europe,” and “The Return of the Dark Ages.” India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.
The article makes the point that these texts are not presented as contrarian or alternative positions, or matters brought up to inspire lively classroom debate and spark deeper research. They're canonical.
One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems. Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually. And it’s a belief system that must eventually appear to be the truth.
