Why college professors are telling us that we're living in "capitalism"? - Liberty.me

Why college professors are telling us that we're living in "capitalism"?

Marko I. November 29, 2014 at 8:47 pm

I find this beyond annoying. So as many of my friends from around the globe who are currently studying on colleges in many countries.
Professors on colleges in many countries are claiming that we’re a living in capitalism and that a bad economic state is a fault of capitalism.
It’s happening really often on my college. Like “capitalism is to blame”.. The other students in class are believing those words and and it’s making me sick.
The question is if professors even understand that we are not living in capitalism or they just need to repeat what somebody told them (like blame everything on capitalism, students have no idea about it).
First, if they don’t understand the current state of mixed economy they shouldn’t even get their diploma and should never be a professors in a first place.
And second, if they’re required to repeat what somebody told them, they are clearly speaking of the usefulness of that state controlled education.

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Kevin Victor November 30, 2014 at 1:04 am

Yeah this is why a lot of left-libertarians approach not using the term capitalism when discussing markets. Capitalism to them is what corporatism is to capitalists. This might have an advantage as far as strategy but the semantic argument is tough. Meanings can change for the better or worse and new labels come about, but at a certain point it might be important to stick to certain words for the sake of clarity and understanding.

The main point showing the current economic environment and how it’s interventionist based, is through the use of central banking.

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Youliy Ninov November 30, 2014 at 12:12 pm

“Professors on colleges in many countries are claiming that we’re a living in capitalism and that a bad economic state is a fault of capitalism.”

The most interesting thing is that these same professors support capitalism. It is just that they think that other options do not exist. They have been taught that this is the only possible system of societal organization. This all leads to the idea that man is bad by birth. A much easier idea to digest and accept than: “Our basic beliefs are wrong, and that is why the system works in a wrong way”. People never change their basic beliefs, they would rather blame somebody/something else for the bad results of their own actions. It is much easier.

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Marko I. November 30, 2014 at 2:56 pm

Yes, well, i think that they are very cleverly circling around. They very often implicate “I support capitalism, but it’s no so good, we need state to help” and so on.. I think that they don’t even know what they support. If that is true, they are negating the facts + not having an idea about capitalism. From my view, to teach students about it is very dangerous. Maybe i’m little extreme, but if any free market intellectuals should revolt against something they should revolt against those who use the word improperly. Capitalism it’s capitalism. What they do not understand is that “little bit of capitalism” is not a capitalism.

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Jeff Peterson II November 30, 2014 at 9:56 pm

I see no logical reason for this. As far as I am concerned, those who oppose the term “capitalism” are only doing so because they are equating it with what they find wrong with the world, this includes the libertarian-left.

I actually wrote an article on this too long ago.

http://wti.liberty.me/2014/11/08/anti-capitalism-a-love-story

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Piers Echols-Jones December 2, 2014 at 10:41 am

I chalk it up to Dr. Bryan Caplan’s concept of rational irrationality. Professors are just like any other person in that they hold biases and it’s painful to change those beliefs. Since, there is seldom a direct feedback mechanism that immediately demonstrates when a person has the wrong idea about political and economic concepts, people are comfortable rejecting the opposing rhetoric out of hand.

On the plus side, I think a professor is more likely than others to change their mind when presented with hard evidence, of which there is plenty in favor of capitalism. However, a professor of Engineering or Biology seldom has peers who carry around this hard evidence for use in casual conversation.

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