I think I have to agree with angus on this one. The profound lack of economics education among the American population has been on my mind lately. There is a deep need for economic literacy packaged for the common man and woman. This is especially so given the fact that we, as voters, are called upon to ultimately decide all of these very complicated economic questions [and feel deeply entitled to do so], it seems to me that the more educated people are, the better.
The fact that education as a responsibility of voting is not more often and more seriously discussed I think is that it is still associated with old debates over the poll tax, limited franchise, and the like, which were settled a century ago. Any discussion of the need to educate voters now has a whiff of elitism. Lost in all of this is memory that the Founding Fathers of the US were deeply concerned about whether people could successfully self-govern themselves, and that modern democracy, being only one or two centuries old, is still a relatively novel experiment. The Founding Fathers' concerns are by no means dated. To the contrary, as society became more complicated, the needs of education only grew, until by our grandparents' generation, only the so called experts or technocrats could truly make decisions. This was all fine and good so long as people did not lose faith in the technocrats' competence or integrity, but it seems as if we may be entering in a period where we are losing faith. It seems to me that the less people want to be governed by technocratic insiders like Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and the like, the more incumbent it is to ensure that the voters themselves have some degree of economic education. Not that this will qualify any one to actually replace a technocrat. But it will narrow the gap, if only a little, and hence narrow the power differential between voters and technocrats, if only a little. More important, may also enable our democracy to make better choices, and hence a better chance of preserving itself.
It seems that many people's thinking about economics can be categorized in several levels, similar to
Converse's levels of conceptualization.
Level A - Intimidated
At the most basic level is people who are intimidated by economics. I frequently see people saying "I don't know much about economics, but...", "I'm no economist, but..." When you start talking to them about fiscal subjects, their eyes glaze over. They'll worry about the debt ceiling, but they won't have the first clue of what to do about it. I would put many Americans, if not most, in this category. They simply don't think about it. One way to reach this level of Americans is to have some supposed 'expert' say something that sounds smart. "Former Chief World Bank economist..." or "Economics PhD..." or simply "Economist..." the people with these titles can trade on them to convince a vast swath of people of some vague sense of unease on the radio.
Level B - Group Economics
Beyond the intimidation level are people who have been activated enough by concern for economic subjects to get interested and vocal, but they don't understand any more about the subject than people at Level A. What they do understand is that the banks got bailed out and they didn't, or the top 1% have a lot more wealth than them, and that they are angry about it. It's like the school yard child who fights for their share of the toys. Their motivation for being involved in these discussions is to make sure that they, or people like them, 'get theirs'. Alternately, they may not belong to the group they are trying to help, but still see it in the same way (one group vs another). Unfortunately many of the tea partiers and Occupy Movement people are at this level, even though they are good people.
Level C - Property Economics
A lot of conservatives fall into this category, but many non-conservatives think this way too. For them, economics is all about justice as they see it in a very narrow property sense, rewarding good, punishing evil, preserving liberty. The laid off are lazy, and need to work harder. The rich got there because they deserve it. Any sort of redistribution is theft. The key is that the free market always delivers the morally just result, and any attempt to interfere with this is morally wrong. The analogy is like the school yard child who learns to treat others like he would be treated. Unfortunately, this puts many conservatives and tea partiers at a higher cognitive plane than many Occupy people, who more likely fall into Level B.
Level D - Intellectual
Finally, the intellectual level, consists of people who actually try to understand the economy as a working system that is complex and has certain predictable rules and patterns. The analogy is the child who have moved out of the school yard and into the classroom. It does not matter what the child's opinions are; he or she could have identical opinions as a Level C, Level B, or Level A person. He or she could be far left or far right. They could be a communist or a Paulite. What matters is that they are not intimidated to engage in economics, and are also not intimidated to seeing it as a system with facts and rules that are relevant to decision-making and opinion-formation. Hence amenable to study.
Most people who are engaged, of course, fall into more than one category, and may combine A, B, C, D. Still, I would wager that many people do fall into one of the categories predominantly. The use of economic jargon or sophistication is not an indicator of what category one falls into. Just because one can talk about interest rates, bonds, CDOs, moral hazard, the money supply, et cetera, it does not mean that they operate on the intellectual level. That's because there is a lot of jargon out there and it can be used & abused to an infinite degree. What you have to do is really look at what a person is writing or saying in a wholistic manner, to get sense of what kind of thinking the person is appealing to.
Our schools have undoubtedly failed us. But I don't think that economics education is something that can be solved by appeals to self-education alone. It requires an active effort, among professors, teachers, lecturers, economists, and professionals of all stripes, to spread knowledge far and wide. It is a project, that can be in service to the highest ideals of our nation.
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