Why are so many college students far-left liberals or socialists?

[Dan.]

[ QUOTE ]

Most teachers at the elementary and HS levels believe that disobedient people are bad and should not succeed in life. They don't become teachers because they enjoy showing children new things. They enjoy weeding out the "bad seeds". They enjoy berating disobedient children. They enjoy telling the disobedient children that they will flip burgers or swing a hammer for the rest of their lives. They have a smug sense of superiority and believe they should be paid much more than the average person for performing this task (guess how well I did in school lol).

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So is this purely anecdotal or do you have some sort of survey/something to back this up?

[Ron Burgundy]

Just my personal view and experience.

[Vagos]

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Although I haven't heard the lectures, I doubt that any of your professors actually believe capitalism in general is bad. The lectures you guys heard where Professors bash an effect of capitalism do not prove that the professor is anti-capitalism. It is possible to believe in the overall goodness of a system and still point out its flaws, as I do when I talk about the US government.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be ok if they did this for BOTH sides, but in my experience, they didn't...not even close actually. I never heard capitalism mentioned in a good light in 4 years at my school.

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]

"We often travel all over the place, and meet up with other groups. We will sell our videos to them or if they are low on cash, we will exchange them for other videos."

I turned to my friend and whispered, "Otherwise known as capitalism." We had a good laugh.


[/ QUOTE ]

WRONG

Capitalism consists in deriving income from OWNERSHIP instead of LABOR (i.e. sitting on your ass and reaping profits from someone else's sweat and blood). Market exchange is not unique to capitalism nor is it mutually exclusive with socialism.

[ShakeZula06]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

"We often travel all over the place, and meet up with other groups. We will sell our videos to them or if they are low on cash, we will exchange them for other videos."

I turned to my friend and whispered, "Otherwise known as capitalism." We had a good laugh.


[/ QUOTE ]

WRONG

Capitalism consists in deriving income from OWNERSHIP instead of LABOR (i.e. sitting on your ass and reaping profits from someone else's sweat and blood). Market exchange is not unique to capitalism nor is it mutually exclusive with socialism.

[/ QUOTE ]
Proof plz.

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although I haven't heard the lectures, I doubt that any of your professors actually believe capitalism in general is bad. The lectures you guys heard where Professors bash an effect of capitalism do not prove that the professor is anti-capitalism. It is possible to believe in the overall goodness of a system and still point out its flaws, as I do when I talk about the US government.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be ok if they did this for BOTH sides, but in my experience, they didn't...not even close actually. I never heard capitalism mentioned in a good light in 4 years at my school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you ever taken an economics course? I was shocked at how shamelessly introductory economics simplified the world in order to make capitalism look better.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although I haven't heard the lectures, I doubt that any of your professors actually believe capitalism in general is bad. The lectures you guys heard where Professors bash an effect of capitalism do not prove that the professor is anti-capitalism. It is possible to believe in the overall goodness of a system and still point out its flaws, as I do when I talk about the US government.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be ok if they did this for BOTH sides, but in my experience, they didn't...not even close actually. I never heard capitalism mentioned in a good light in 4 years at my school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you ever taken an economics course? I was shocked at how shamelessly introductory economics simplified the world in order to make capitalism look better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me too, I was also shocked how shamelessly introductory physics simplified the world just to make Newton look better.

[Vagos]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although I haven't heard the lectures, I doubt that any of your professors actually believe capitalism in general is bad. The lectures you guys heard where Professors bash an effect of capitalism do not prove that the professor is anti-capitalism. It is possible to believe in the overall goodness of a system and still point out its flaws, as I do when I talk about the US government.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be ok if they did this for BOTH sides, but in my experience, they didn't...not even close actually. I never heard capitalism mentioned in a good light in 4 years at my school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you ever taken an economics course? I was shocked at how shamelessly introductory economics simplified the world in order to make capitalism look better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, I did in fact take a couple of introductory economics courses (my concentration was in english/journalism), but just because they mentioned how the free market operates doesn't mean it was mentioned in a "good light." There was no agenda at my school to "make capitalism look better", it's just that the nuts and bolts of the free market (which is what an intro course SHOULD be teaching) are in fact, quite simple.

I had literally dozens of classes that had nothing but bad things to say about capitalism, with no encouragement to debate such issues, only to debate from the first principle "Capitalism is bad, now what?"

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Although I haven't heard the lectures, I doubt that any of your professors actually believe capitalism in general is bad. The lectures you guys heard where Professors bash an effect of capitalism do not prove that the professor is anti-capitalism. It is possible to believe in the overall goodness of a system and still point out its flaws, as I do when I talk about the US government.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would be ok if they did this for BOTH sides, but in my experience, they didn't...not even close actually. I never heard capitalism mentioned in a good light in 4 years at my school.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you ever taken an economics course? I was shocked at how shamelessly introductory economics simplified the world in order to make capitalism look better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, I did in fact take a couple of introductory economics courses (my concentration was in english/journalism), but just because they mentioned how the free market operates doesn't mean it was mentioned in a "good light." There was no agenda at my school to "make capitalism look better", it's just that the nuts and bolts of the free market (which is what an intro course SHOULD be teaching) are in fact, quite simple.


[/ QUOTE ]

You don't think terms like "deadweight loss" and "inefficiency" are loaded language designed to make the policies that produce them look bad?

I think when you teach that a policy is "inefficient" or produces "deadweight loss" you are implying that it is normatively undesirable. In particular, introductory economics, through its terminology and pedagogical focus, suggests to students that policies that impede wealth creation are bad, without giving serious consideration to the tenuous relationship between wealth and utility.

[iron81]

Has anyone heard one of these "capitalism = bad" lectures from a professor? I looked through the first half of this thread and didn't see any examples. I suspect this whole anti-capitalism bent is an urban legend.