Public economic education
posted Nov. 22 - 10:10 pm by Laura C
In their posts, Keely describes Jim Stanford as a translator and Myles calls for advanced economic education and resistance. I find myself considering what is needed to take us from translation to widespread radical action and believe it requires the work Jim Stanford is doing: public economic education. This resonated with me because I work at an organization that provides public legal education. We believe public legal education is citizenship education which ensures the law remains a bulwark against tyranny. By translating the law in to plain language, we help people understand what the law says. In doing so, we enable people to understand their rights and responsibilities and make effective use of the law.
The public legal education movement has been active in Canada for over 30 years. There are national and provincial organizations supported by national, provincial and municipal governments as well as private and public foundations. There is nothing of a similar nature or scale in this country providing public economic education.
I thought it was important that Stanford critiqued the use of market updates as a way to manipulate the public. The lack of understanding means the public looks to experts and believes them uncritically. Public economic education would allow people to understand and critique the messages they are given about the market. It would also allow them to imagine new ways of organizing economics.
If governments ruled according to law alone, public legal education would be enough to educate people on how to interact with and influence government. However, as we discussed several times at this conference, governments in this country rule with more consideration to corporations and economics than people and laws. Therefore, that sad truth is that it is essential that the public be educated in economics in order to effectively engage their governments.
I thought it was important that Stanford repeatedly made the point that the real market is based on work. My friends and I like to joke that “the market isn’t real”, but the truth is the consequences of the market are very real. People are losing their jobs and their homes because this imaginary market clashed so hard with reality. People need to understand how economics work so we can build a society that is based on real economics and serves the interest of its people.
