What Ignorance Destroys

Upton Sinclair famously wrote about another economic crisis: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

For today's economic crisis, I'll update that to: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something he has been mis-educated to not understand."

merlin1963 at Firedoglake:

I think there is a third factor that has hampered and will continue to thwart the formulation and implementation of any progressive economic agenda: the economic illiteracy of the American people. Without some means to educate the public, the media, and our elected leaders about progressive economic alternatives to our current economic crisis, conservative politicians with their message discipline will continue to sway an electorate that is woefully ignorant on economic matters with simplistic and illogical soundbites passing as policy solutions.

Now, I define economic literacy, for the sake of this blog, as understanding SOME of the tenants of basic economics. In other words, stuff you should have learned in at least high school or maybe even college. This does not mean that you or I should be able to hold forth on the complexities of economic theory with the likes of Paul Krugman, but I do think that a basic knowledge of economics should involve understanding the definition of economics – the study of scarcity and how people deal with scarcity of resources – and a few key concepts. NOTE: I am not an economist, but I did take micro and macroeconomics in college many years ago.

Sadly — no, tragically — most Americans don’t know a damn thing about economics. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Everything I know about economics I learned from reading Paul Krugman, but apparently even that terrific writer's clear prose is not enough to overcome what Krugman himself called "invincible ignorance."

This isn't a debate between Keynes and Friedman, or even a discussion about what Adam Smith meant by the "invisible hand."

This is an existential fight against ignorance. For half a century, rethuglicans have fought to undermine and destroy public education. Now they have finally achieved their goal: an electorate unable to distinguish facts from lies, much less make informed decisions about policy.