Perhaps without knowing it, the Argentine economist Walter Graziano through chapter 1 of his "Hitler won the war" is giving the socio-critical theorists of education very valuable empirical evidence.
A. Introduction
- In my first Didactics and Curriculum class - postulates of socio-critical theory in the educational field - I immediately associated him - denounces 2004 guru from the city of Buenos Aires Walter Graziano
- Alleged manipulation in the training of economists around the world, concocted at the highest levels of world power, in order to favor the dissemination of neoliberal economic policies and the poorly managed globalization that we see today.
Why did I do this job?
- As a student of this Teaching Cycle, pass the Final Colloquium. As an economist, make a small contribution to encourage the formation of an investigative commission of notable academics to certify whether Graziano's complaints are true.
B. The ideas of social critics in the field of education
Sociology of Education, Didactics and Curriculum - early 1980s - an interesting trend - critical social thinking - Henry Giroux referent.
Close links with:
- New Sociology of Education - Michael Young, Basil Bernstein, Paul Willis - Critical neo-Marxist analysis of education - Michael Apple -.
Common theoretical sources (according to De Alba)
- The Frankfurt School The Neo-Marxism of Raymond Williams Some Contributions of Foucault The Thought of Gramsci
In Latin America
Díaz Barriga, Germán Rama, Daniel Filmus, Cecilia Braslavsky, Jorge Tedesco, Tenti Fanfani, Adriana Puiggrós.
Ideas around the curriculum: the conformations of educational curricula are not innocent practices, but are selections made intentionally by those who hold power.
Giroux, in Professors as Intellectuals «… certain power structures produce forms of knowledge that legitimize a particular type of truth and lifestyle.
Power in this sense has, in its relation to knowledge, a broader meaning than is generally recognized.
As Foucault points out, in this case power not only produces knowledge that distorts reality, but at the same time produces a peculiar version of truth… »
Alicia de Alba, Curriculum: Crisis, Myth and Perspectives «By curriculum we mean the synthesis of cultural elements that make up a political-educational proposal thought and promoted by various groups and social sectors whose interests are diverse and contradictory, although some tend to be dominant and hegemonic, and others tend to oppose and resist such domination or hegemony. Synthesis to which it arrives through diverse mechanisms of negotiation and social imposition ».
- Emerging synthesis - struggle - with a preponderance of what is held by dominant groups in a society, with respect to the dominant and hegemonic interests imposed by curricula
- Decade of the '70s, the curriculum - reproducer of the prevailing social order Bourdieu and Passeron, Baudelot andEstat, Althusser and Bowles and Gintis But the possibility - curricular elements that opposed or resisted such domination was left aside.
- Paul Willis - «Learning to Labor», 1977- or Michael Young - «Knowledge and Control», 1971- very important criticism of orthodox Marxism - Frankfurt School, cultural neo-Marxisms of Raymond Williams, etc.- arises.
- Conceptual cradle theories of resistance, support of radical or socio-critical pedagogy, Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren Understand the role and possibilities of resistance elements in the shaping and development of current curricula In Argentina Filmus, Tedesco, Braslavsky, Tenti Fanfani, Davini.
Giroux:
- You should ask why this knowledge? rather than what is the best way to learn this given body of knowledge? Need to examine the constellation of economic, political and social interests that different forms of knowledge may reflect.
Giroux proposal:
- The definition of schools as democratic public spheres. Critical democracy That teachers should be the "transformative intellectuals" of society.
- Critical thinking Educate for risk, For the effort for institutional change, For the fight against oppression and in favor of democracy in society in general Teachers need to write, research and collaborate with each other in the development of curricula and the sharing of power In a word: generate cultural resistance
Graziano research: how scholarly knowledge would have been distorted within the field of economics during the last 50 years, knowledge that then impacts on economic policies that either badly regulate or strongly affect people's daily lives.
C. Thanks Walter for your research, it comes from knobs for our theory
- few antecedents - some writing - on such a great curricular manipulation - as the Argentine economist Walter Graziano denounces, is providing a very powerful practical element to the socio-critical theoretical discourse in Education.
D. Knowing Walter Graziano. Could it be a "lefty"?
- 45 years old Former BCRAEx Ámbito Financiero and El Cronista Stable guest on TV with Mariano Grondona, Daniel Hadad and Marcelo Longobardi Former Politics & Economics on cable TV Fashion guru in the 90s before businessmen Improvement studies at the IMF
His center-right background makes the results of his research doubly interesting to read.
E. Specifically: what is the manipulation of the curriculum that Graziano denounces and of which all economists would be victims?
For Graziano, it all started because of guilt (or thanks) to going to the movies.
- "A Brilliant Mind" The Life of Mathematician John Nash, 1994 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics - "Game Theory" A moment in the movie - Nash discovered, literally, that A. Smith - the father of economics - was wrong Nash declares that more than a century and a half of economic theory was fading I began to investigate, and the good thing about it is that it was… a truth
• For Graziano, Nash and his discoveries would have demolished Smith, and with him a large part of the theoretical arsenal that is taught in universities and we come to find out 50 years later. Handling?
- Nash discovers that a society maximizes its level of well-being when each of its individuals acts in favor of their own well-being, but without losing sight of the other members of the group as well. In this way, Nash helps to generate a whole theoretical apparatus that describes reality more accurately than classical economic theory,… »The little that is taught in undergraduate and graduate degrees is done without formulating the prior clarification that when working with Game Theory a more sophisticated and closer to reality than with classical economic theory. It continues to be taught from day one to day that Smith is not only the father of economics, but that he was also correct in his hypothesis about individualism.Many of the teachers who teach economics to their students every day have not even been informed that more than half a century ago someone discovered that individualism, far from leading to the best welfare of a society, can produce a lower degree, and many times very appreciably lower, of general and individual welfare than could be achieved by other methods of mutual aid. 'And they were made at no less than Princeton Nash's discovery of the falsity of Smith's theory should have put a state of alert and in emergency to the community of economists throughout the planet.general and individual welfare than could be achieved by other methods of mutual aid. 'And they were made at no less than Princeton. Nash's discovery of the falsity of Smith's theory should have put a state of alert and emergency. the community of economists on the entire planet.general and individual welfare than could be achieved by other methods of mutual aid. 'And they were made at no less than Princeton. Nash's discovery of the falsity of Smith's theory should have put a state of alert and emergency. the community of economists on the entire planet.
• According to Graziano, the teaching of the "Second Best" theorem would also have been manipulated and we also came to find out 50 years later
• According to Graziano, all this manipulation would have been concocted to favor the theories of Milton Friedman
- The '50s and' 60s, the theories developed at the University of Chicago were widely disseminated in the media State activity in the economy should be reduced to a single basic premise: to issue money at the same rate as the economy is growing All other policies state economics is discouraged by Friedman ». England with Tatcher was the only and very brief case of application of the recipes of this school in developed countries.
However, the pressures for developing nations like Argentina to apply these policies have always been very strong.
- Friedman have resulted from a little less than irresistible attraction: they are economics theorists first, and big businessmen second. Theoretical economists, the attraction came from the simplicity of their recommendation: issue currency at the rate you grow. saw the possibility of breaking down a large number of obstacles and state regulations in many countries, thus being able to broaden its business base to areas of the planet that remained outside their activity.The most powerful businessmen would pressure the rulers of peripheral countries to apply the thesis by Milton Friedman.
A typical case of them was that of Argentina at the time of Martínez de Hoz
- Theories entirely based on the basic assumptions of A. Smith, and which Nash proved to be wrong,
like Friedman's monetarist, not only did they receive enormous media coverage, but they also had the approval of the establishment, and began to wreak havoc in countries taken as laboratories, • And also all this manipulation, according to Graziano, would have been at the service of the theories of the «engineer» Robert Lucas
- A country, according to Lucas, should not do anything beyond closing its budget without deficit.
If unemployment is in the double digits, you don't need to do anything. If people are literally starving, they shouldn't do anything. A good minister - for that school - should leave a country's economy on automatic pilot, and should only be concerned that public spending is fully financed with tax collection, ”Graziano concludes.
- The best thing that every government in the world can do at any time, economically, is to do nothing other than maintain fiscal balance.How could it be that the economic theory of the entire planet was in the hands of an engineer who was sketching theories psychological - a discipline very far from engineering -, ultra-specialized in mathematics. Without the Chicago seal, Lucas's theories would probably have caused hilarity… ", thinks Graziano, with great success.
• Finally Graziano gives names and surnames: the Rockefeller clan and a few powerful Anglo-American families would move the strings of world power, shielded behind the CFR -Council on Foreign Relations-
- The financing did not stop only in paying high salaries of the researchers who developed the monetarist theories and rational expectations in that academic campus, but also included the costly campaign to disseminate these ideas in the media. behind the University of Chicago?
Well, it was founded by the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller I, creator of the largest oil monopoly in the world: Standard Oil. This college has always been a stronghold of the oil industry.
- But the control of a high house of studies such as the University of Chicago alone would not have been enough, the oil industry not only founded the University of Chicago but also controls, directly or indirectly, at least the universities of Harvard, New York, Columbia and Stanford, and is also present in many other universities.In chapters after chap. 1 of "Hitler won the war", talks about the CFR -Council on Foreign Relations-, the management of the main universities in the world -such as the aforementioned case of Chicago- and the scholarship money to attract the world's brightest minds In development of these study houses, the management of banks, including the Federal Reserve, medical laboratories, the media, the arms industry, and even drugs.Graziano excels in the extensive investigation that links the Secret Societies of yesteryear, several of them racist like the Bavarian Illuminati, with the current one
"Skulls and Bones" which would be based at Yale University itself and which would have belonged to several lawyers who have become US presidents, including the current George W. Bush.
In short, Graziano denounces throughout his book the actions of those who, according to him, hold the true power of the world, With a structure within which the manipulation of the educational curriculum of the economics major would have been fundamental for the achievement of its objectives.
Note: This presentation was made for the Final Colloquium of the Didactics and Curriculum matter, of the Professionals Cycle for Professionals, of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, UNCuyo, Mendoza, Argentina.
