Is There a Case for NOT Teaching Our Children Economics?

I’ll preface this post with a caveat: I believe that for the most part that there is not a lot of formal economic education in the United States, and one can often only find it in the higher levels of education. That being said, I do believe that Americans get a hearty education in economics throughout their lives—mainly through their own interaction with the world’s largest and mostly free-market economy. Most Americans may not read Smith, Von Mises, Hayek, Freidman, ect., but their day to day learning allows them to “get” economics anyway. I would argue that most Americans realize that if they produce things that others value, then they will be rewarded, and that those who succeed at this should be allowed to keep most of the value they create and entrusted with more economic resources. Furthermore, Americans tend to get irked when folks steal from one another (illegally and legally), and nothing upsets them more than hearing of someone who has lost their home to the unscrupulous misuse of eminent domain or otherwise failed to earn their windfalls without hard work and/or risk. Thus, I believe that Americans grow up and prosper with a hearty—and largely self constructed—respect for property rights, the profit motive, risk, incentives, and the rule of law.

Despite my own hearty respect for this culture economic self-teaching, I have always been a big fan of teaching economics to middle and high school students—7th grade seems a good place to start. However, comments on this article on the “economics education” received in some countries have been floating around the economics blogosphere, and I am starting to think that perhaps it might be better to forego any attempts at economic education and just maintain the current system of letting folks learn it in the marketplace. The reason being, that while some countries do provide economic education for their youngins, what passes for “economics” is not just wrong but rather disturbing.

P.S. The link from the Economist's article does (at present) not link to the full article in Foreign Affairs, but should hopefully soon be restored.