Looking Forward to the Next Eight Weeks: Teaching "Intro to the Economics of Crime and Social Problems" (again)

I am pleased to be wearing my adjunct professor hat again this summer for John Jay College of Criminal Justice (part of  CUNY... the City University of New York system).  I am teaching a course that existed in the John Jay economics department before I started teaching there as an online adjunct (almost 3 years ago now), but I have made it my own.

The course is Economics 170 "Introduction to the Economics of Crime and Social Problems" (online).  I started out teaching this course as a hybrid between the syllabi of the chair of the economics department at John Jay who used mainstream methods with a liberal twist, and a John Jay professor who is a recent UMass PhD and radical economist.

Although still containing elements of both of these professor's syllabi, over the past three years the course has morphed into something uniquely my own.   I record video lectures in my home office and blend these with a non-mainstream into economics text (Understanding Capitalism) , and a large amount of discussion responses and supplementary readings throughout the semester.  For those interested, you can get a better feel for the course in my introductory video for this summer's students. (This will be the only material for the course that I will link to directly from my blog, as I don't want to get into intellectual property issues with John Jay).

I realize that this post is self serving as most of my readers will never take an economics course at John Jay (if you are interested in signing up I have three or four spots left this summer, but the course starts today...so get on it asap!). That said, I think it is important to share what I am trying to do, in this world dominated by neoclassical economic thought and teaching.  My goal when teaching Intro to the... this summer is to have the students study the interaction of economic, political, cultural (and criminal) processes not as something given, requiring the memorization of tools to analyze, but as a collection of fluid and changing ideas.

The question "what is a crime?" is in a state of rapid change in our society as we re-make and re-define while we re-build American capitalism after this most recent systemic crisis (recession).  The growing inequality in the United States in both wealth and opportunity for material advancement is going to require people to rethink many aspects of our criminal justice system.   The US criminal justice system has been, and remains, notoriously biased against certain classes of people, but as a larger and larger portion of the country becomes "working poor", how the definitions and ideas of what is criminal change will have vast impacts.  Will we allow the criminal justice system to continue as it has been operating, allowing affluence to buy justice when fewer and fewer people will be able to afford it?  Possibly growing economic inequality might finally force society to address issues of inequality in justice that should have been resolved decades ago during the civil rights movement?

 I am incredibly excited about the opportunity to draw a paycheck (albeit a relatively small one) while engaging with this type of question again this summer (especially considering the positive experiences I have had teaching the students of John Jay College in the past)

US News and World Report: Ranking of Graduate Programs in Economics. A Thought...

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/economics-rankings

Check the "rankings methodology".
It is essentially the academic equivalent of asking Anheuser Busch / Inbev employees to rank the best breweries.  Hegemony breeds hegemony and bourgeois thinkers love bourgeois thought.   The most remarkable thing here might be that I am even bothering to remark on this.  

My Online Marxian Economics Class Starting Tomorrow

Just to let everyone know:
I have a couple of seats still in the University of Massachusetts Continuing Education version of Economics 305, "Marxian Economics" that is starting tomorrow, Monday the 17th.
This is the famous Resnick Marxian class, I am just the facilitator / grader.   You get the Resnick video lectures.  This is a great introduction to the subject matter that has done more than any other in shaping my career! 
Email me at
jamiehls@gmail.com
if you would like more info. 

Some Thoughts On Grading and Signaling

Some Thoughts On Grading and Signaling:

I have been spending the evening tonight grading papers and my thoughts have wondered to something that I often enjoy discussing with my students around the idea of grades
(a small caveat, I don't usually bring this up in my online courses as it is open for misinterpretation that I can't read on my student's faces when recording a video lecture. )

I often present to students the idea that a big part of college is not what you are actually learning in any given course (unless you are in the "hard sciences") but rather the idea that by finishing college you are signaling to potential employers that you are able to finish what you have started, as well as apply yourself to the long process of getting a degree.  This includes dealing with bureaucracy (as any UMass student can testify to) as well as the social / cultural skills of interpreting what different professors with different personalities / goals in education think to be important.  It is not learning introductory economics that earns you an A in my course it is learning how to figure out what someone like me thinks is important to memorize / do.  Show up, participate, whatever...

This is of course not really the case, but there is some truth in the signaling model.  Success after college is a mixture of what you have learned, and the ability to show that you were capable of learning it, and all the effort that goes into getting through college beyond the course material. 

Like it or not, (and I generally don't), part of our job as professors is to rank our students for their future employers. Part of this rank is a student being able to signal to a future boss that they are productive and highly exploitable.  A portion of my role is to help the student show just how good they will be at getting exploited.  Gotta love capitalism.

A Lecture (by me) on Why I Choose to Use Political Economics (instead of other methodologies)

This short lecture (20 min) describes why I choose to work from a political economic method in my Intro to Economics of Crime and Social Problems.  The alternatives are of course more commonly accepted, and I feel far less useful to my students.
Despite the awkwardness of filming lectures, and my running out of the room for 30 seconds to get a marker, I feel this is one of my more profound intro online lectures.
I hope you enjoy
https://vimeo.com/43236196
Comments are welcome.

Last Instance Humanism in Intro Economics Teaching.

"The market does/causes, etc."

A common comment from many of our students. 
It is not really surprising, nor is this a unique complaint in the circles I sometimes run. 

The hegemonic narrative in bourgeois capitalism is "the market decides".  The market is fair, and returns to you what you put into it.  Without getting into the bowels of neoclassical theory, the general public are taught that the market determines our wages, our mortgage rate for our homes, our material well-being in general. 

This is problematic on many levels, but I think especially in the dehumanizing of economic decision making for the introductory student. I have watched students (at least those paying attention) squirm in their seats when return to capital is introduced.  But a 20 minute rant in an intro economics course doesn't solve the larger problem.  How do we move society in the direction of realizing that "we are the market".  Or at least "they control the market"

This is a really important step of realization of class consciousness, but I am lost in terms of how to address it.  Other than one student at a time?

The Lingering Effects of Ideological Indoctrination

The greatest challenge in terms of material so far in my online Marxian economics course this winter has been the preconceived notions of communism held by many students.

I don't blame my students at all, and yet find it hard not to get frustrated reading discussion post after discussion post along the lines of "the workers getting equal shares of the surplus" when defining communism. 
The concept of apprpriation prior to distibtuion of surplus can be complex, yet...

I cannot help feeling that ideas of a homogenous, drab, poor, "equal" society haunt the consciousness of many of us in this society still.  I guess that is why so many fear Obama being a "socialist"? 

Fighting ideology with ideology remains the mission, the battle remains uphill. 

(As an aside, I am amazed at the sophistication of thought of many of the students in this course.  Teaching introductory level economics is great, but this course has been incredibly invigorating for me so far). 

The Factory of Bourgeois Ideology Production At Work

I took this picture last night at an Economics 103 (Introduction to Micro Economics) final exam at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

No where is it more clear to me than during a large lecture final exam how much our education system is designed to produce obedient and productive capitalist works.  People are expected to be faceless, and nameless, complete their assigned task and leave.  Any deviation from this will result in serious reprocussions, both from the overseers, as well as I would imagine discipline from the other faceless, nameless ones who are attempting to succeed within the system.

The goal is obviously different, a grade instead of a paycheck, but the mechanism certainly prepares the student for their future of being exploited and/or perpetuating exploitation of the working class. 

Regarding the teaching of micro economics by a bunch of Marxists:
This will be a future post, but I don't have an enormous problem with it.  If nothing else neoclassical theory is an important part of economic history.  My hope is that someday it will ONLY be taught as such.  For now, teaching it allows many who are attempting to subvert the theory to reproduce their labor power.  A contradiction certainly, but I can think of worse aspects of what the young Marxist scholar is asked to do on a day to day basis.

Finally, a shout out to Mark S.  The very serious gentleman patrolling the ranks in my photo.  Check out some of his writings here at The Cognitive Footprint. 

Online Marxism

Just a quick note:
UMass Amherst is running an online version of Economics 305 "Marxian Economics" both over the winter and also next summer with yours truly as the instructor.
This course is based upon (and still shows videos of) the course Steve Resnick has taught here for years.  I couldn't be more excited (except for the inherent limitations of the online format). 

I Already Posted the Conclusion. By Posting the Intro I am hoping for force myself to take the body of this essay out of point form. Three more posts on this should follow soon.

An Essay on the Political Nature and Consequences of the Process of Teaching Economics:

Neoclassical Economics in the Classroom.

INTRODUCTION:

                  Many of us economists, whom are not bourgeois economists, will be called upon over the course of our careers to teach neoclassical economic theories.  In fact we are often called upon to teach entire courses based upon said theories.   There is no argument that these theories, their ideological underpinnings, and the politics and culture they support are the dominant theories and processes of modern American society.   The following arguments are especially pertinent to those of us in what are traditionally considered introductory economics, where neoclassical theories remain hegemonic in most presentations more so than “upper level” undergraduate courses where a brief survey suggests that slightly more pluralism exists.   This does not mean that the following is not relevant in all economics classrooms, just that it is the author’s opinion that there exists slightly more pluralism in the more advanced material.  In this essay I will argue that those of us who do not subscribe to the dominant views of society, and may wish to change said views, have not only an interest in, but an obligation to inform our students of the political processes that are taking place in the classroom. 

                   In my experience the teaching of radical economics is often constrained by the need find balance between favored (by the instructor) heterodox ideas and the need to do justice to students who will continue in mainstream economics educations.  Often even the most radical of economics educators will accept some mainstream institutions (such as textbooks that frame economics as apolitical) as given.  It is important that radical economics educators are self-aware of the political nature of our choice of the level of engagement with mainstream economics in the class room.   

The dialectical relationship between what is practiced in the classroom and what students accept as the field of economics during and after their education is something that many economics educators choose to ignore.  As radical economists we need to be aware that our choice of level of (dis)engagement with the mainstream in economics education has consequences both within, and outside of the future of our profession.  This essay is an attempt to bring to light some of these consequences by examining the institutions that we question, and the institutions that we take as given, both implicitly and explicitly when teaching economics. 

                  The essay has three main points.  The first section provides a critique of both accepted practice in mainstream teaching, and some of the perceived consequences when we fail as radical educators to engage against bourgeois society in the classroom, that is, pretend that teaching can be apolitical.   The second section discusses the teaching of bourgeois economics by asking the question; when called upon to do so, can we teach these theories, and acknowledge how important they have been in our society (both historically and presently) in a way that is clear, does the theory justice, and leaves the student open to critique?  The third section of this essay discusses choice around both content and pedagogy in the classroom for economics educators who are aware that there is a political aspect to the process of classroom teaching. 

Dialectics and Politics in the Classroom

This is just a brief thought that is contained in the conclusion of an essay that I am writing at the moment:

Bourgeois economists have the luxury of being able to deceive their students, and in many cases themselves, into pretending that their theories and pedagogical choices are apolitical.   This mindless dissemination of mainstream political ideology in the classroom is both dishonest and harmful to students of college level economics.  

The choice of presenting a theory as apolitical; be it the theories of dominant bourgeois economics or otherwise,  is itself a political decision to continue to disseminate hegemonic ideology.   Economics does not exist in a world distinct from politics (and culture).  To pretend that the political realm of society in not shaping economic theory in the classroom and elsewhere is nothing short of insane.  Likewise it is not a leap to assume a dialectical relationship where economics classrooms are shaping political processes.  If the economic theory being presented in the classroom cannot help but to shape the politics of our students, those of us who prefer a politics different to that of the mainstream need to be much more careful in how we operate pedagogically than is the norm.