Europe’s Philosophy of Failure

[magistre]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/users/login.p…4095&page=1

Europe's Philosophy of Failure

By Stefan Theil

January/February 2008

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the statecontrolled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world's great democracies—France and Germany.

What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society's historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on—over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.

Just as schools teach a historical narrative, they also pass on "truths" about capitalism, the welfare state, and other economic principles that a society considers selfevident. In both France and Germany, for instance, schools have helped ingrain a serious aversion to capitalism.

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In one 2005 poll, just 36 percent of French citizens said they supported the free-enterprise system, the only one of 22 countries polled that showed minority support for this cornerstone of global commerce.

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"Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer," asserts the three-volume Histoire duXXe siecle , a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities … Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as 'brutal', 'savage', 'neoliberal', and 'American'. This agit-prop was published in 2005, not 1972.

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Start-ups, Histoire du XXe Siecle tells its students, are "audacious enterprises" with "ill-defined prospects." Then it links entrepreneurs with the tech bubble, the Nasdaq crash, and mass layoffs across the economy.

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French students, … [W]hen they graduate, … may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of "la McDonaldisation du monde" and the benefits of a "Tobin tax" on the movement of global capital.

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Germans teach their young people a similar economic narrative, with a slightly different emphasis. The focus is on instilling the corporatist and collectivist traditions of the German system … Even a cursory look at the country's textbooks shows that many are written from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract. Bosses and company owners show up in caricatures and illustrations as idle, cigar-smoking plutocrats; sometimes linked to child labor, Internet fraud, cell-phone addiction, and, of course, undeserved layoffs. The successful, modern entrepreneur is virtually nowhere to be found.

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Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed "The Revival of Manchester Capitalism", "The Brazilianization of Europe", and "The Return of the Dark Ages". India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.

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One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe's schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems.

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Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually.

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[A.B.]

J'ai eu l'occasion au cours d'un diner de rencontrer une etudiante lambda en ES. Le plan du cours est a fremir d'horreur, le programme de l'annee est divise selon l'etude des differentes "classes", travailleurs, patrons, etc.

[POE]

Mouais, les Allemands et les Français ne sont quand même pas des loosers au niveau économique. Parler de philosophie de l'échec me semble dramatiquement exagéré.

[A.B.]

Mouais, les Allemands et les Français ne sont quand même pas des loosers au niveau économique. Parler de philosophie de l'échec me semble dramatiquement exagéré.

Au niveau enseignement des sciences éco, ce dont il est question, si.

[POE]

Pourquoi ce titre, alors ?

[h16]

Parce que lorsqu'on apprend à tout un rang d'âge que le capitalisme, c'est mâââl, une fois que cette classe d'âge entre dans la vie active, elle choisit le repli et le catastrophisme, le tout-à-l'état et l'abandon des principes fondateurs de la richesse des peuples au profit du collectivisme, d'une sociale-démocratie très rouge qui est finalement vouée à l'échec.

C'est bien une philosophie de l'échec qu'on file à manger et à boire aux élèves d'éco.

[walter-rebuttand]

C'est surtout une philosophie du mal qu'on apprend à l'ensemble des gens qui ne deviendront pas des entrepreneurs.

[Jesrad]

Normal, l'etat a besoin de bons petits esclaves solidaires et pas pres de defendre leur individu.

[Invité jabial]

Tu peux mettre solidaires entre guillemets, hein, parce qu'il a besoin de robots qui répètent ce mot, surtout pas de clans réellement constituées où les gens se défendent les uns les autres.

[kolb]

A voir l' état de la discussion sur les questions économiques dans la presse et même au cours des conférences de presse présidentielles, l'on se dit que quelque chose de plus grave est en train de se produire en Europe: la polution du language par des concepts totalement depassés a accaparé les esprits. Par exemple le pouvoir d'achat ne peut en aucun cas être decidé par le president etc. Eh bien! tous le petit monde parisien accepte l'alarmisme de gauche.

Enfin, les élites, tellement exclusives dans notre pays, auraient pu constituer des exceptions, mais non leur connaissances économiques dépassent à peine le sociologisme du 19 siècle.

Quels sont les écoles les plus libérales en France et Europe? (Ils ont ouvert une de type LSE à Paris en 2006?!)

[A.B.]

Quels sont les écoles les plus libérales en France et Europe? (Ils ont ouvert une de type LSE à Paris en 2006?!)

Ah ! C'est Piketty qui a ouvert ca, un socialiste.

[Rincevent]

Ah ! C'est Piketty qui a ouvert ca, un socialiste.

Dont les parents sont militants trotskystes. Et qui a consacré sa thèse de doctorat à la théorie de la redistribution des richesses. Pas obsédé, le gars, non…

[Taranne]

Tout le monde n'est pas impressionné par l'article de Thueil:

http://econoclaste.org.free.fr/dotclear/index.php/?2008/01/08/1134-les-francais-sont-nuls-en-economie-le-retour-de-la-revanche

[kolb]

Quand même il y a des arguments dans cet article. Et de toute manière, depuis Allais il n'y a pas grand économiste connu mondialement. Maintenant l'on peut supposer un certain complot… cela cautionnerait une pensée, elle-même tellement marxiste. Car de cela il est question en dernière analyse, la dé-marxisation qui n'a pas eu lieu dans certains pays du continent. Car un "néo-libéral de gauche" ne pourrait jetter à la poubelle les dernières développements et découvertes de la science économique.

PS. les nobel Sen et Stiglitz vont effectuer une mission sur l'état de l'éco française.