First, having made it most of the way through the Berkeley "Economic History of the US" course now - I partially retract my recommendation. After the first half a dozen lectures, it kinda falls to pieces.
The *syllabus* looks fascinating. Detailed examinations of this aspect or that - neat stuff.
In practice, the professor totally ignores it, and rushes through the 18th and 19th centuries so as to have more time telling us horror stories about income inequality, why Republicans are stupid debtmongers for wanting to cut taxes when they think they see a surplus, but Democrats are smart because they want guargantuan debts in the middle of a downturn, and ...well, yeah. You get the idea.
There's a few good nuggets in there, mostly as related to the early industrialization and regional factions - but if you give it a listen, you're not really missing anything if you bow out around 1890. Pretty much everything after is the same thing you'll get on the talking head shows - hard Keynesianism, the occasional nod to the free marketers but not much of why they're wrong - just that they are - and lots of snide one liners about contemporary Red Team politicians.
It would be one thing if it was challenging to my core beliefs or something, but mostly it was just "okay, heard this argument... you're not mentioning the counter argument, but go on..... ditto.... ditto..... ditto....... meh. not much new here."
On the other hand, UC-B is giving the darn thing away, so it's not like I can complain much.
Anyhow... about done with this round for a while.
g'night.
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6 comments:
I can't imagine talk like that coming out of Berkeley .
Well ... look on the positive side. You l'arned sumpin' ...
Sure, it's "UC-B professors are cut from the same cloth, no matter how intriguing their initial premise", but that's something.
<>
That's an oxymoron.
Anyway, since you're smart enough to know the smell of BS and the squish of it between your toes when you step into the wrong pasture, you can still learn a lot from this course. Maybe not what you had hoped, but still a great amount. It's an exercise in critical thinking. Spend your time not only telling yourself that he's wrong, but why he's wrong and in some detail. Where you're sure he's wrong but unable to say precisely why, take notes on your impressions - they become your study guide for future exploration. That way you become the informed critic, not the inchoate naysayer like so many of our friends on the anti-liberty side of the fences. Keep up the good work!
(BTW, the comment verification I have to type in to prove I'm human for this comment is "calsf." Not quite "calberkeley," but close! :-) )
SFlorman - that is well said.
Frankly, I put him in the same mental category as Howard Zinn. That is... you're going to hear some things you should be hearing for a complete picture - but you also shouldn't go into it without a decent knowledge of at least the rudiments of the subject, so you at least know you're being presented with only half the debate.
Last night's class provides a perfect example of the Ivory Tower. The basic argument was "economists don't really get the complaint over inflation, because it's just about units. Things cost more, but your wages are higher. Sure there's that sticky wages thing, but they're not *that* sticky. But the proles didn't really understand that so we got Reagan. Now....."
uh hunh. I wanna see the man try to manage a payroll for a company that doesn't depend on grant money but has to actually earn its customers in the marketplace, and then talk about how inflation's no problem since wages just go up to match.
Map ain't the territory.
Also, GIGO.
....and when discussing the bailouts of late, he gives essentially a "def-con" scale of "what we can do when things get screwy." Wherein we're at five... six is "nationalization of the banks" and seven is "full on communism or pray."
... I feel so much better now.
I thought six is when there is a run on wheelbarrows at Home Depot.
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