[galacticpony2]

So, an article in "The Guardian" laments the immorality of teaching capitalism to future would-be capitalists. Color me shocked!

What should we teach them instead? The importance of social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and warm feelings and how capitalism is really evil and how they should feel bad about employing its principles? In other words, shall we turn them into sheep to be let loose among the wolves (and charge them for it)?

There's an argument to be made against many practices taught to MBAs, but those arguments better be supported by some science (like behavioral economics). It all has to make sense and support the bottom line.

Let's take the example of the manager who fires a hundred workers and who pays himself a 500,000$ bonus (half of which will fall to taxes). He's in it for the money, just like those workers. Should he give up on his bonus and save ten employees for one year? Will that increase productivity or is he better off increasing his own wealth? We're talking about a man who rose to the top, someone whose education (or indoctrination) will not have destroyed his sense of self-interest.

[Jedd]

> So, an article in "The Guardian" laments the immorality of teaching capitalism to future would-be capitalists.

Hmm. From TFA, the author laments that:

Within the business school, capitalism is assumed to be the end of history, an economic model that has trumped all the others, and is now taught as science, rather than ideology.

And then:

The business school assumes capitalism, corporations and managers as the default form of organisation, and everything else as history, anomaly, exception, alternative.

Reasonable, and substantiated, concerns around economics as a subject (rather than pretending to be an actual science).

> Let's take the example of the manager who fires a hundred workers and who pays himself a 500,000$ bonus ... We're talking about a man who rose to the top, someone whose education (or indoctrination) will not have destroyed his sense of self-interest.

Your commitment to the masculine is probably merely a habit, but you've inadvertently highlighted one of the problems exacerbated by the teachings of the average business school -- self-interest at any cost is acceptable, because it's an inherent property of capitalism.

Self-interest is fine and dandy, but the example you're citing -- dispense with a hundred people in order to obtain a half a million dollars -- is not an overly productive practice for most societies.

[galacticpony2]

> Your commitment to the masculine is probably merely a habit, but you've inadvertently highlighted one of the problems exacerbated by the teachings of the average business school -- self-interest at any cost is acceptable, because it's an inherent property of capitalism.

I'm not committed to anything, would you have preferred I chose a woman to be put into the role of (from your perspective) "the villain"? What about a transgender person of color, would that not completely change the power dynamics of the situation? How about literally a red herring that somehow made it through business school?

The point is, if you want to just push an ideology into the heads of students in order to "fix capitalism", without any regard to the actual socio-economic environment, you're doing them a disservice and you will fail at your goal. These people will not survive in the market based on what you teach them.

"Self-interest at any cost" is a naive caricature of capitalism. You're probably indoctrinated too much for me to make an impact here, but just keep in mind that if you only ever fight a straw man, you're never winning an actual battle.

> Self-interest is fine and dandy, but the example you're citing -- dispense with a hundred people in order to obtain a half a million dollars -- is not an overly productive practice for most societies.

Unfortunately, you weren't even able to perceive the scenario as the dilemma that it is: In this scenario, either 90 or 100 workers will be fired for economic reasons. The question is, does the manager give up on his bonus to save 10 people for one year, voluntarily. If he does, it may have an impact on morale, boosting productivity, possibly leading to even higher long-term gain. If he doesn't, he immediately gets to be more wealthy. There's no obviously right or wrong answer even from the point of self-interest.

Contrary to what one might like to believe, productivity is not the same as production output. If there's a surplus, production must be decreased to the point where it meets demand, not well above. Laying off workers then can improve productivity, because revenue relative to cost increases. These are basic economic principles that exist even outside of capitalist systems, especially socialist systems (used to) struggle with this issue. As far as society as a whole is concerned, widespread misallocation of labor makes everyone poorer, because it creates a discrepancy between what is produced and what is necessary.