Her på Punditokraterne gjorde jeg mig for nogle måneder siden lystig over alt det pomo-vrøvl (Deleuze, Foucault et al.) som det franske akademiske liv har været storleverandør af de seneste årtier. Det afstedkom til min store tilfredshed en del fornærmede reaktioner (fx denne her (kig helt nede i bunden af bloggen)).
Jeg havde for nylig lejlighed til at besøge Frankrig, idet jeg gav seminarer på de to business schools, INSEAD i Fontainebleau og Haute Etudes Commerciale (HEC) i Paris Jeg blev da klar over at der er andre manifestationer af fransk akademisk liv, som med lige så stor ret kan kaldes "Den franske Syge." En af dem skal beskrives her.
Mine franske kolleger fortalte mig, at en del af deres studerende ikke var glade for at studere fx det såkaldte "CEMS-program," fordi dette kræver at de studerende tilbringer et semester på et udenlandsk universitet eller business school. (Bemærk: Der er her tale om management-studerende som typisk er blandt de mere extroverte i studenterpopulationen!). De fortalte mig også at en nylig meningsmåling havde afdækket, at det ord flertallet af franske unge øjeblikkelig associerer med "globalisering " er "frygt." Og de informerede mig om at ifølge en anden meningsmåling er det primære job-ønske blandt franske unge et job i staten. Det skal sammenholdes med en nylig meningsmåling, der viste at Frankrig som det eneste land i EU har en majoritet, der er direkte fjendtlig over for "markedet."
Klassisk liberale er som bekendt karakteriseret ved en tyrkertro på at "ideas matter." Nogle klassisk liberale har således advokeret for at økonomiundervisning bør indføres endog meget tidligt i skolen. Ikke sandt, poderne kan da kun have godt af at lære lidt om offeromkostninger (når nu venstreorienterede politikere notorisk ikke forstår noget af dette både elementære og fundamentale princip). Det skader heller ikke at kende lidt til statsbudgettet så man bedre kan afkode, hvordan politikerne sløser med borgernes midler.
Det et synspunkt jeg selv har været meget charmeret af. Men der er grund til lige at huske på, hvem der bestemmer pensum og hvem der formidler dette. "Økonomi" er mange ting, herunder socialistisk økonomi. Og her er vi tilbage i Frankrig og den franske syge, Mark II. For ifølge en artikel i International Herald Tribune fra i søndags, "Economics, French-style," står det helt galt til dernede. Her er nogle udpluk:
"Danielle Scache tries to avoid using the term "capitalism" in her economics class because it has negative connotations in France.
Instead, she teaches her high school students about the market economy, a slightly less controversial term she started using last year after a two-month internship at the dairy giant Danone. That was an experience that did away with more than one of her own prejudices, she said.
"I was surprised to see that people actually enjoyed working in a company," said Scache, who is 59. "Some of them were more enthusiastic than many teachers I know."
"You know," she confided with a laugh, "in France we often think of companies, especially multinationals, as a place of constant conflict between employees and management."
This view of bosses and workers as engaged in an endless, antagonistic tug-of-war goes some way toward explaining the two-month rebellion against a new labor law."
"As Finance Minister Thierry Breton put it last week: "There is a significant lack of economic culture in our country."
"The question of how economics is taught in France, both at the bottom and at the top of the educational pyramid, is at the heart of the current crisis," said Jean-Pierre Boisivon, director of the Enterprise Institute, a company-financed institute that sponsors the internship program for economics teachers that Scache took part in.
"In France we are still stuck in 1970s Keynesian-style economics – we live in the world of 30 years ago," he said. "In our schools we fabricate a vision of society that is very different from the one that exists in other countries."
"And then there are the textbooks. One, published by Nathan and widely used by final-year students, has this to say on p. 137: "One must analyze the salary as purchasing power that you could not cut without sparking a deflationary spiral and thus higher unemployment." Another popular textbook, published by La Découverte, asks on p. 164: "Are there still enough jobs for everyone?" It then suggests that the state subsidize jobs in the public sector: "We can seriously envisage this because our economy allows us already to support a large number of unemployed people."
These arguments were frequently used on the streets in recent weeks, where many protesters said raising salaries and subsidizing work was a better way to cut joblessness than flexibility."
Det kunne måske give anledning til at nogen underkastede det lærebogsmateriale der anvendes i gymnasiet i DK til undervisning i økonomi i samfundsfag et eftersyn. En opgave for CEPOS?