Some time ago I posted a commentary on a propaganda email making the rounds about an economics professor who failed an entire class. It pretended to be a true story, but was actually a fiction, designed to "prove" that fairness in the marketplace would lead to the collapse of the economy.
There's been a lot of interest in those posts. So I thought I would revisit the idea from a different angle—this time providing my own version of the tale.
I won't lie to you, however. What follows is a parable. It never happened in the real world. It's merely a way of making a point.
The first four words should make that completely clear...
ONCE UPON A TIME there was an economics professor...
She loved teaching almost as much as she loved her subject. Like most born teachers, she was much more interested in what her students learned than she was in establishing her authority in the classroom, or assigning grades. She knew that those things are necessary to the task of teaching, and to the system she taught in, but regarded them as tools to be used to increase learning.
One year she found herself teaching a class full of dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. They seemed unable to think beyond their ideology, and countered any evidence she presented with economic dogma, which they didn't even seem to have thought through.
"Free markets can be trusted to solve all problems," they said, "economic or otherwise."
"Government regulation will predictably lead to economic collapse," they said.
"Any attempt to introduce enforced 'fairness' into a system," they said, "will only undermine the market forces which make the system work."
The teacher was saddened at their closed-mindedness and narrowness of thought. She considered long and hard how to get them to connect their thinking to the real world, which she knew was much more complex than their political theories.
Finally, she came up with a plan.
She walked into class one day, faced the students, and asked a question.
"Do you see any similarities between our country as a whole and this classroom?"
The students were silent at first, then one raised a timid hand.
"Well, the country has citizens, and the classroom has students..."
"Very good," the teacher replied. "So if you represent the citizens, who symbolizes the government?"
Another hand went up.
"You do."
"Exactly. And what would be the equivalent of currency?"
"Grades?"
"Very good. Would you be willing to undertake a little experiment, in order to test whether government regulation is a good thing or a bad thing, right here in this classroom?"
The students, being a bit cocky, readily agreed.
"Fine. Here's what I propose. I will grade the scheduled exams and papers just as I always have, and assign the grades as usual. However, from this moment forward, I will cease to regulate how you go about writing those papers or taking the tests."
Blinded by their ideology, the students saw no problem with this.
The first paper was due the following week.
Next time: what happened...
