Austrian economics and politics in my schoolwork! (Readable version)

Miscellaneous General
1

Hey!

I am a swedish youth, currently studying at the counterpart of “high school”, my second year out of three. I found my way to austrian economics through my interest in politics and philosophy and the more I “intermarry” myself with economics, the more interesting I find the subject. That’s why I want to integrate my new-found knowledge in economics (and in particular austrian dito) in my schoolwork, although I am still pretty untaught at the subject.

Here, in high school, we have an operation called “project work” where the pupils can work with whatever they want and however they want, pretty much - only ones creativity and imagination sets the boundaries. The only requirement is that it has to be related to your educational track (I study the social science program). The pupils work with their thing for about 50 hours totally, and then they hand in a report at about 30p or something. To obtain a high grade on the work, one must formulate very “scientific” (due to the context, just read: “competent”, “qualified” or whatever :slight_smile: ) questions at the issue, a purpose, limitations for ones work, an evaluation and so on… this is more like a higher educational work than a high school-work if you know what I’m saying.

As I said, I’m considering doing something related to economics and have austrian economics as a main theme (I’m more acquainted with this field than conventional economics) in my work. And this is the part where you come in, because I have some trouble finding out what to do. I have only come up the following things so far:

*Create a blog or something similar where i comment various economic happenings in society, in an austrian point of view. For example, I can write a relative comprehensive article once a week about something (for example unemployment), wich I have been studying during the week in the austrian text books (my main information source could be Man, Economy and State).

*Translate a text book in austrian economics to swedish.

*Create a news-business where I write to foreign people, in english, about what is going on economically and politically in sweden, with a subtle austrian and libertarian “twist” (all other news-companies here report with a subtle socialist twist so that would be fun). This could help to spread information and statistical facts about the so called blessings of the worlds highest taxes and the great welfare state. (Did you for example know that 3000 people die every year due to medical errors in the governmental health care monopoly and that patients sleep and get medical treatment on the floor sometimes, at the emergency departments here? Or that there are professional statistical estimates that 60 000 rapes are committed every year in Sweden? Have you ever heard about the brutal rationing in the tax-funded starving senior homes, or that people have committed suicide due to the governments fraud in tax-funded social security?)

What do you think about the ideas above, what more ways and concepts can you come up with, for me to integrate austrian economics and political philosophy in this work?

Greetings!

2

Welcome to the forums! You’ll find a lot of great resources throughout this great site.

Beginner’s tip: Take a look at your post. If you came across it somewhere and it was written by someone else, would you read it the way it’s currently laid out?

3

Christ… something seriously went wrong when I posted it (think it was due to an add-on by Firefox). I will try to edit my post, or post a new post in this thread. Thank you for noticing me.

EDIT: Done! I have now divided the text inte paragraphs :slight_smile:

4

Random thoughts:

  1. All the ideas you mentioned are excellent.

  2. Choose something you will love doing and will be more fun than a chore.

  3. I personally would love to know more about the dark side of the Swedish utopia. Over here in the USA it has the image of being heaven on earth, Marx’s dream come true. Health care especially is hyped as being Shangri la.

  4. If you are going to mention to the world what is bad in Sweden, those who decide your grade may be very upset. So you might make it very clear that the problem is not Swedes, but an inherently flawed system. Maybe you can interview your teachers and principals to find out what they will gripe about. You could put it this way: I would like to make my thesis about the the most bothersome problems in Sweden as it is today, that affect everyday people, and propose practical solutions. Would you be willing to tell me what bothers you most about healthcare bla bla bla.

You could then write your thesis. You state a problem, like the emergency rooms you mention, and point out it that it was predicted by Austraian economics before it happened. You then explain why such a problem is inevitable under socialized medicine, and will always remain somehow, and in the worst ways, as long as socialized medicine exists.

You go on and point out a solution. Free enterprise. You explain how that problem and many others, will be solved. How the worries that made people want socialized medicine were imaginary or else caused by government in the first place.

If needed, go on to another problem and do the same thing.

  1. A light hearted tone always helps.
5

+1

You need to show that Sweden is awesome despite the welfare state - not because of it. It certainly wasn’t the welfare state that made Sweden one of the richest countries in the world.

If welfare only “works” in Sweden because the vast majority of people are hard-working, honest people who agree with it and all feel a strong cultural bond with each other, then you don’t need it to be a compulsory centralised bureaucracy.

6

Thank you very much for your feedback!

I have been thinking about the things you mention in number 4, it is actually very important, and I appreciate your tips. I think I will hande that well. I’m very diplomatic to my character and I always make sure to make clear why I have a good reasons and basis for my statements (by statistics, logic and empirical examples) when I discuss politics. And I never claim that I am right and other people are wrong with a “hard nose”. As long as I express my thoughts in a diplomatic and careful way, I don’t think there will be much problem, and my nearest and dearest are quite used to my radicalism as well. My goal is to make people interested, like myself when I first discovered economic ideas.

7

Feel free to post pieces of it here as you go.

8

Welcome! It’s wonderful to see someone from Sweden here exploring new ideas.

I like all of your ideas, the first and the final sound a little difficult, but I would quite like to see the second as I think that would be the most practicle.

Tell me, would you like to have a private conversation? I’d love to learn more about Sweden.

9

I think this has promise, and I’ve had a little experience with it. In my old high school economics class we had to write an analysis of an article every week relating to economics in some way, so I just applied the knowledge of Austrian economics I had at the time (which wasn’t and isn’t very much) to the various issues. The only problem I see, and what I started to run into a few months in, is repeating yourself. There are only so many times and so many ways you can explain how taxes create a deadweight loss in the economy, or that credit expansion causes the business cycle.

You seem to be very fluent in English, so I doubt this would be all that difficult. The only problem I see is that you might not get as high a grade for this as for some of the other options. It’s a good idea for sure and would definately be of benefit to Sweden if you were to publish it online, but I’m afraid that your teachers may view it as a cop-out.

This is my favorite option, but for entirely selfish reasons; rubbing the Left’s nose in the problems they cause is always good fun. Politically sensitive teachers may not be very happy with you if you follow this route, though.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I wish you luck on the project and with your studies in economics.

10

Thank you, Rcder and Neodoxy! So far I am leaning more towards the first or the last alternative, or maybe a combination of both, as I find those alternatives most enjoyable. But I have until next semester to think about it and come up with new ideas.

Neodoxy, I would like to have a private conversation with you, just send me a PM!

11

Thanks. But I won’t start with it until autumn, around August - September or so