Economics that is not capitalist-focused?

[Haiku]

I am looking for an economics course that is not capitalism-based. I am not a communist or a socialist but I do not want to teach my kids the idea that everything comes down to money and that a business is successful if it makes a huge profit regardless of its negative social, economic, environmental, and other societal costs. I believe in a living wage and don't like stock-market-based financial shenanigans. Is there anything out there that would suit me? I am looking mainly for high school resources (and will x-post there) but materials suitable for younger kids  or adults would be good, too.

[fourisenough]

Steer clear of Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and other books by the same author. They have a very heavy free-market bias. We read them, but I was careful to point out the author's viewpoint and how it varies from other perspectives.

[Χά�ων]

:lurk5:

[stripe]

I see a libertarian perspective in virtually all the homeschool economics suggestions, a la Penny Candy; Mater Amabilis uses

Plato’s Trial and Death of Socrates: The Apology (Macmillan). The State and the Nation, by Edward Jenks (Dent) pp. 1-118.

Ourselves, [Charlotte Mason] Book II. (P.N.E.U Office), pp. 1-32. Ruskin’s Crown of Wild Olive (Allen & Unwin).

http://materamabilis.org/ma/high-school/

 

I wonder if you look at material from outside the US, how it would be, e.g. http://www.collins.co.uk/category/Secondary/Business+Studies (although I didn't actually find their site that helpful)

or http://ncertbooks.prashanthellina.com/ (Year 11 and 12 have economics - y11 is about Indian development, y12 about microeconomicss)

[Roadrunner]

Economics is mathematics based and deals with maximizing and minimizing all sorts of things (areas....) on graphs. If you want to discuss basic assumption in economics (people make rational choices on what is best for them) and talk about how those graphs with supply and demand curves mean/translate into real life, you can add discussion or a human element to those curves. I have never read through an economics text written for younger audience, so I might be misunderstanding what they include in such a course. You can also focus more on macro maybe.

[CrunchyGirl]

I am so glad to hear there are parents worried about this! I wish you luck with this. When I taught as a grad student I insisted on including portions of time dedicated to the discussion of the social ramifications of various business strategies (caught my committee of guard when they saw my syllabus). I didn't really find a lot of materials and that was for college seniors so it was mainly short video clips and lots of intense discussion. Honestly given that this was a US university biz school, I was just happy we had a thoughtful discussion.

 

I'd be very surprised if there's anything geared towards kids although some high school students maybe could use college materials. But I agree with the PP that your best bet is likely to look abroad. I'd try to find books written about business strategy and economics (closely related in a lot of ways--they share a lot of underlying theory) from various perspectives. I think the key is to use books that are truly written from that perspective vs. talking about it because as I'm sure you've already figured out, finding a free-market oriented economist who can say one nice thing about socialism is tough!

[Momling]

I'm eager to hear other ideas. I can say my daughter loved reading Freakonomics and superfreakonomics -- which isn't about economic systems or even necessarily about money. Rather, it's based on population data and looking at cost and incentive in various topics (some more or less child-appropriate). Definitely accessible and interesting and based on evidence rather than ideology. I also would suggest doing a history of economics approach. You could read a bit of Plato and Aristotle and Aquinas and Smith and Locke and Marx and Mill and Keynes. I'm probably skipping a bunch of important economists, but my own poor economics education was limited to them. I think putting the theorists into a historical context makes sense... And then seeing how the economic theories actually worked when applied to real humans.

[stripe]

I found this book at my library for kids, but it sounds extremely capitalism-focused!

 

Follow Your Money: Who Gets It, Who Spends It, Where Does It Go? by Kevin Sylvester and Michael Hlinka

 

I am not sure about these

Do I Need It? or Do I Want It?: Making Budget Choices (Lightning Bolt Books: Exploring Economics) by Jennifer S. Larson

Economics and You, Grades 5 - 8 by Kristen Girard Golomb

Show Me the Money: How to Make Cents of Economics by Alvin D. Hall (DK book; I have math books from this series and they are reasonably good)

 The Everything Kids' Money Book: Earn it, save it, and watch it grow! (The Everything® Kids Series)

What Is Supply and Demand? (Economics in Action) by Paul Challen and Gare Thompson -- presumably others in the Economics in Action series

Markets (Our Global Community) by Cassie Mayer

How Globalization Works (Real World Economics) by Laura La Bella

 

A few on labor rights:

Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor by Russell Freedman and Lewis Hine

Kids On Strike! by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

 

and on evaluating/rejecting advertisements

The Big Push: How Popular Culture Is Always Selling (Exploring Media Literacy) by Erika Wittekind

 

How about this?

Communism (Political & Economic Systems) by Richard Tames and David Downing

The others in this series are on democracy, fascism, and dictatorship

[Farrar]

Economics is mathematics based and deals with maximizing and minimizing all sorts of things (areas....) on graphs. If you want to discuss basic assumption in economics (people make rational choices on what is best for them) and talk about how those graphs with supply and demand curves mean/translate into real life, you can add discussion or a human element to those curves. I have never read through an economics text written for younger audience, so I might be misunderstanding what they include in such a course. You can also focus more on macro maybe.

 

I think texts for younger kids that I've seen - at least for elementary - tend to introduce basic philosophies of economics and basic money management skills as well as things like the history of money or other things on that level.  I think that's all fine and good, necessary cultural knowledge, but it also bears only a slight resemblance to what grown up economists study or what you might learn about in a freshman econ course.  I think it's also possibly easier to skew the perspective since the focus is not on data but on philosophy.

[wapiti]

If I wanted to teach an introductory econ course (a study of rational human behavior in the allocation of resources), I would try to find some on-line material - or perhaps a college micro text, though hunting down a good one might be challenging - about indifference curves and study that in as great a depth as possible in conjunction with a lot of open-ended discussion about concepts like economic value (as distinct from monetary measurements of value).  Maybe there are even some micro MOOCs that might have useful resources.  Personally, I'd stay away from attempting to teach macro perspectives until after extensive micro discussion.  Not that it can't be done, just that that wouldn't be my approach (as a potential cart-before-the-horse sort of thing).  IMO the micro concepts are foundational and more important and there's plenty to think about/dig deep.  It is easy to dismiss indifference curves as simple but a deep, intuitional understanding goes a long way in this field.

 

Unfortunately, that doesn't sound at all like the sort of thing you're looking for - this is just a guess, but you might have an easier search, or might find something closer to what you're looking for, if you search materials originating from a social studies/poli sci area of expertise rather than straight up econ.  Eta, another possible road:  you might find a nonfiction book on antitrust written from a historical or social perspective rather than an economic perspective.  Antitrust is generally a higher-level college econ or law school course (I've taken both) and is intellectually demanding, not to mention potentially dry and boring; however, a historical angle on a specific industry may be much more accessible and might be quite interesting for a high school student *if* you can find something well-written yet not overly-sensational.  Just thinking out loud... I wish I had a specific example, though the more I think about it, the more I think framing a sort of economic history course on the issues you are concerned about would be the way to go with a high school student.  While a good deal of what pops up on Amazon is professional-level material, somewhere there's got to be a historical account of a monopoly bust-up that would discuss the sorts of things you are interested in discussing and on an appropriate reading level.

[CyndiLJ]

Have you checked this out?  I have looked at it in person and it felt pretty even handed:

 

http://www.amscopub.com/economics-for-everybody

 

 

[stripe]

Mater Amabilis uses

Plato’s Trial and Death of Socrates: The Apology (Macmillan). The State and the Nation, by Edward Jenks (Dent) pp. 1-118.

Ourselves, [Charlotte Mason] Book II. (P.N.E.U Office), pp. 1-32. Ruskin’s Crown of Wild Olive (Allen & Unwin).

http://materamabilis.org/ma/high-school/

BTW, CM's "Ourselves" has nothing to do with economics; it is about personal morality:

 

      Part I Conscience

         Section I Conscience In The House Of Body

           Chapter 1. The Court Of Appeal . . . pg. 5

           Chapter 2. The Instruction Of Conscience . . . pg. 9

           Chapter 3. The Rulings Of Conscience In The House Of The Body: Temperance . . . pg. 12

           Chapter 4. The Rulings Of Conscience In The House Of The Body: Chastity (Part 1.) . . . pg. 21

           Chapter 5. The Rulings Of Conscience In The House Of The Body: Chastity (Part 2. Ordered Friendship) . . . pg. 29

 

So Mater Amabilis is apparently connecting personal morality and economics, either explicitly or implicitly.

 

Ruskin's selection says 

The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:—it deals with the essential properties of things.

The study of Money is a province of commercial science:—it deals with conditions of engagement and exchange.

The study of Riches is a province of moral science:—it deals with the due relations of men to each other in regard of material possessions; and with the just laws of their association for purposes of labour.

and contains discussions such as 

16. (i.) Land. Its value is twofold; first, as producing food and mechanical power; secondly, as an object of sight and thought, producing intellectual power.

Its value, as a means of producing food and mechanical power, varies with its form (as mountain or plain), with its substance (in soil or mineral contents), and with its climate. All these conditions of intrinsic value must be known and complied with by the men who have to deal with it, in order to give effectual value; but at any given time and place, the intrinsic value is fixed: such and such a piece of land, with its associated lakes and seas, rightly treated in surface and substance, can produce precisely so much food and power, and no more.

The second element of value in land being its beauty, united with such conditions of space and form as are necessary for exercise, and for fullness of animal life, land of the highest value in these respects will be that lying in temperate climates, and boldly varied in form; removed from unhealthy or dangerous influences (as of miasm or volcano); and capable of sustaining a rich fauna and flora. Such land, carefully tended by the hand of man, so far as to remove from it unsightlinesses and evidences of decay, guarded from violence, and inhabited, under man's affectionate protection, by every kind of living creature that can occupy it in peace, is the most precious "property" that human beings can possess.

and (e.g., from  26. III.—Riches.)

Where no moral or legal restraint is put upon the exercise of the will and intellect of the stronger, shrewder, or more covetous men, these differences become ultimately enormous. But as soon as they become so distinct in their extremes as that, on one side, there shall be manifest redundance of possession, and on the other manifest pressure of need,—the terms "riches" and "poverty" are used to express the opposite states; being contrary only as the terms "warmth" and "cold" are contraries, of which neither implies an actual degree, but only a relation to other degrees, of temperature.

certainly provide food for thought, no matter what one's opinion of Ruskin's personal strangenesses.

My memory of Socrates was that he was not particularly impressed by money-making being the center of one's life, especially as concerned the Sophists, who made money through teaching rhetoric. Anyway I think one could approach economics in a similar fashion, using readings about the nature of money or work or the "worth" of something, whether you liked these particular choices by Mater Amabilis or not.

[KarenNC]

Anyone familiar with "Consumer Education and Economics" by Ross Lowe? It's Glencoe/McGraw-Hill from 2006.

[denarii]

Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher. Not for kids but an interesting read for an adult who is familar with basic Economics.

[frogger]

You may want to check out some various resources from here http://www.councilforeconed.org/resources/

[frogger]

Honestly before High School you probably just want to cover basic economic vocab so that they can properly understand the arguments of the various schools of thought. I feel like doing more is basically brain washing for young children. I like to give them the tools they need so they can reason things out themselves. We point these things out while reading history books, etc. Terms like scarcity, resources, capital, opportunity cost, comparative advantage,  supply and demand (upper elementary and middle school can very easily actually graph things), how a change in price is moving along a curve versus an actual shift in the curve, inflation which of course relates to supply and demand, and price ceilings and price floors, and a basic productions possibilities curve can all be really understood by a young person. Then when they are older they can look at different schools of thought with a little more understanding of what the economist is actually saying.

 

Like the above poster stated you could just get a Micro textbook and probably stick with the first chapter or look further in the glossary. Once you know the terms you can explain them to your child.  I think it would be harder to find quality material for young ones. I have used stuff from the above posted link but they really are for teachers who are familiar with the material. If you are they have interesting stuff at times but they are made for classroom settings.

[luuknam]

Zombie thread, but for anyone still interested, you can also look up "negative externalities" and "tragedy of the commons". Which are usually covered in introductory economics texts (they were covered in my high school economics class, but, I'm from NL). I also liked the book "The Worldly Philosophers" by Heilbroner, which talks about various economists through the years.