Black Lives Matter and The Economics Profession ft. Carolina Alves
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- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2024
- Produced by Hobbie Stuart
Artwork by Jacob Cob
© 2020 Unlearning Economics
Relevant Organisations :
Diversify and decolonise economics:
d-econ.org/mis...
The Sadie Collective (US)
www.sadiecolle...
The Black Economists Network (UK)
linktr.ee/tben
References (in rough order of appearance)
‘Richard T. Ely: The Confederate Flag of the AEA?’, Clifford F. Thies and Ryan Daza
econjwatch.org...
The Problem of the Negro, George Stigler www.bradford-d...
Uhlig quotes are screenshotted here:
johnhcochrane....
Statement from the AEA Executive Committee www.aeaweb.org...
Diversity in the Economics Profession: A New Attack on an Old Problem’, Bayer and Rouse
pubs.aeaweb.or...
blackfemalepro...
The parochialism of economics, Daniel Gay emergenteconom...
Economists' Silence on Racism Is 100 Years in the Making, Francis and Opoku-Agyeman
www.newsweek.c...
Is there racism in economic research?, Mason et. al
www.sciencedir...!
Economics is a Disgrace, Claudia Sahm
macromomblog.c...
Uhlig’s since-deleted blog post comparing footballers to the KK was screenshotted here:
/ 1269393970813165568
Bocar Ba tweet and corroboration from Alejandro Hoyos
/ 1271280963985817600
/ 1271425359796469760
Journal of Political Economy reinstatement of Uhlig:
www.journals.u...
My interview with the New York Times, Harald Uhlig
haralduhlig.blo...
Uhlig’s Krugman tweet:
/ 1286086897467641857
Some thoughts on Harald Uhlig etc., Marshall Steinbaum: steinbaum.blog...
Policy on Harassment, Discrimination, and Sexual Misconduct, University of Chicago studentmanual....
Gary Becker and the Economics of Discrimination, John Jackson
altrightorigin...
Milton Friedman’s Economic Racism, John Jackson
evonomics.com/...
Chicago economics faculty page:
economics.uchi...
Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination, Bertrand and Mullainathan
www.uh.edu/~ad...
Field Experiments on Discrimination, Bertrand and Duflo
www.nber.org/p...
What Has Economics to Say About Racial Discrimination?, Kenneth J. Arrow
Antisemitism: An Analysis, Philosophy Tube • Antisemitism: An Analy...
Is now a teachable moment for economists?, Bill Spriggs
www.minneapoli...
The Economics of Race, Kyle Moore
phenomenalworl...
Race Discrimination: An Economic Perspective, Lang and Kahn-Lang Spitzer
www.aeaweb.org...
A Profession With an Egalitarian Core, Tyler Cowen
www.nytimes.co...
On Economic Agency, Peter Doyle
Milton Friedman clip:
/ 1142432913449000960
Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis
Decolonising technology: a reading list, Beatrice Martini
beatricemartin...
The Greatest Cover-Up in History?, Abhaey Singh www.huffington...
There is No “Case for Colonialism”, Yannick Dupraz and Valeria Rueda
blogs.lse.ac.u...
How can you do an economics degree in Britain without learning about the British Empire?, Susie Steed / how-is-it-possible-to-...
The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery: 1776-1848 & The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800, Robin Blackburn
Sociological Perspectives on Racial Discrimination, Small and Pager
www.aeaweb.org...
I thought the Kids Choice Awards and Grammies gave honors to people that didn't deserve it, but damn that Nobel Peace prize
I mean, yeah. The peace prize recipient is often not the best decision. They gave Obama one while he dialed drone strikes up to eleven and had the US involved in war in multiple countries. If you could ask the people at Iraki weddings who were blown to pieces they would likely be just as offended.
Old white dudes aren't known for making the best decisions. They will pat themselves on the back tho. 🤭
Still better than the fake “Nobel” in economics.
The University of Chicago also contributed directly to housing discrimination in Chicago from 1933-1947 by financially supporting neighborhood associations nearby which had racial covenants (basically an agreement between the community stating that African Americans weren’t allowed to move in). A really illuminating book when it comes to how African Americans experienced discrimination in work and housing is The Color of Law. It’s written by a Berkeley law professor and shows how the government endorsed, supported, and propped up racist practices post Jim Crow rather than racism being a result of people’s private opinions/actions.
Racism is a useless teleous.
"Actually it's systemic racism that's actually worse but alot more subtle-"
No, you're making stuff up to justify your failures.(or success) Try again
@Wiegraf not the first time won't be the last. 😎
@Wiegraf RUclips doesn't have human mods so said something that made the robots blush
@Wiegraf That doesn't need to be many individuals. A minority can easily push their ideas if the majority stays passive.
@Wiegraf That's beside the point. Or rather, it confirms the point already made in the video - your insistence on individualistic approach makes you blind to the systems, and how they affect economy and society. Until you recognize that you have no possible chance of understanding or explaining the world, and your theories are basically worthless.
The amount of comments from people suggesting that it's somehow racist to talk about race, or that statistics don't lie and we should "stop apologising for black people" show's that you've clearly hit a nerve with some pretty "intense" economics enthusiasts. I hope you get time to talk about these issues in more detail because it's clear from the comments that some folk are not really buying it, and it's pretty scary especially when you see how widespread it is.
It isn't "scary". They simply don't agree with you. And they are right to do so.
@mike No theyre just racists with caveman iqs
@@mrosskne it is not scary if i were to scare from bunch of fucking idiots i would be shitting my pants everyday.
@@waltonsmith7210 they're racist for disagreeing?
@@pygmalion8952 good for you I guess
After dropping out of post grad Economics and having only recently figured out why I was so miserable, finding this video (and your channel) is a relief. Can't fully communicate how validating it is to hear you and Carolina articulate things that I thought were just "all in my head". I look forward to more content and timely critique!!!
Unlearning Economics: I know the 12 of you watching came here for the actual economics
Me seeing the number of views is over 12k: 👍👍
Over here tryna learn 👍
There are dozens of us, DOZENS!
I’m a potential econ major attending UChicago next year and this video was incredibly eye-opening. Please keep putting out content.
Consider checking out lectures by Profs. Ha-Joon Chang, Richard Wolf, and Robin Hahnel. You don't have to agree with them, but it's good to be aware of Heterodox critiques of mainstream economics, because you won't be taught them in most Econ classes (especially not at UChicago, for all that it is a great school).
@@jakobstern7696 man Richard Wolf is so damn hilarious i love him
Lol. I have some Econ major friends at UChicago. You’re headed straight to the belly of the beast of neoliberal economics. Stay strong dude
@@MrTooEarnestOnline whats so bad about it man? just curious😹
@@aidancoll919 well really it’s just the place where Milton Friedman popularized his neoliberal model of economics. This went on to influence reaganomics, Thatcherism, the CIA pushing their laissez-fairs model on the third world, and the general wealth inequality you see today. Before this point, in the 60’s American capitalism was more of a Keynesian mixed market model with a lot more social safety nets for working people and less inequality. Only now, do you really see economics professors actually push back on Friedman’s free market model.
There's this strange assumption that while people individually might be prejudiced, in aggregate thier behaviour will be rational. Like... Why? How would a lot of racists somehow make a egalitarian society? It seems to me more likely that small discriminations compound over time.
Correct!
I've now watched all your videos and think this is a superb channel.
I'm somewhat of an armchair economist and had been thinking for a while that there is a huge gap in RUclips for economics.
As a creator myself it's reassuring to see someone fill that gap. Superb work you manage to consistently present economics in a very accessible way.
(Orthodox) economists also did that on studies of disabled people. Daron Acemoglu (yes that Acemoglu) has a paper blaming ADA for making disabled people unemployed. There has been a some sort of consensus that giving a guarantee of worker rights to disabled people would make them unemployed, not that discrimination (especially systematic discrimination) would make that.
If youtube had a stock market, urs would be buy buy buy rn, ngl
This is one of the best analogies I've ever heard.
I very much appreciate this video. I studied economics in college and frequently got into arguments with my professors when the topic of race came up.
you must have been popular with your classmates
Thank you for proving racism is still alive and well.
@Rej how do you figure?
@@Armeddragon12 cringe
@@gwho 🤢🤮
This was a fantastic video to watch.
Can't wait for your channel to explode in popularity! :)
The economics of racism can be understood as a story of people not being seen and not having the ability to make choices like a person. These people who until recently have not even been able to own the clothes that they wore started with an enormous disadvantage. Overtime their wealth did grow with the economy when they regained the economic freedom they have been deprived of for centuries. Since growth is usually exponential. Meaning that if you start with more wealth it will grow faster than someone who starts with less even if they grow at the same rate, those humans who have been deprived of wealth will forever remain poorer than the rest of society until that problem is addressed and solved.
The economics of racism is the sloth being rewarded for Slothfulness, whilst blaming others for their own faults
@BikeTrotter So we should obviously turn to re-distribution to solve all the problems in the world. I hear it worked in the soviet union 100 years ago.
That's an interesting way of describing poor people generally, where can I find more places to read about something similar to this?
@@atherosclerosisheo3379Actually it did work well, good to see you agree.
Oh, god, a Nobel Prize winning economist is defending colonialism via the wheel.
I didn't think people outside of Neo-Nazi forums did that. But nope, there's a well-educated man who thinks the entirety of civilization is based around a circular piece of wood. This is why I minored in anthropology and took sociology classes in addition to my economics major.
"Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" is not actually a "Nobel Prize", but a "Nobel Memorial Prize" and was instated about 70 years after Alfred Nobel's death. The fact that even the existence of the price in economics is a controversy in and of itself, means that there is no hope for it to ever be non-controversial.
L-LOOK! WE CAN MAKE A ROUND PIECE OF WOOD! WE S-SHOULD HAVE THE WORLD FOR THAT-
@@TheGlassgubben I did not know that. Thank you for clearing that up.
Nice educational path. My previous degree was in English and I'm now taking my first economics class as I study to be an actuary.
Throughout this entire semester, it has been rather obvious that the economists teaching me through their writings or lectures have very narrow perspectives of the world around them and would benefit a great deal from some liberal arts or social science classes.
He actually didn't defend or endorse colonialism; he understood it was bad.
(see my other comment)
Dear Unlearning Economics
By chance, would you be the same person who had a blog at one time under the same name "Unlearning Economics"--a UK econ student keeping anonymous for professional reasons with a Post-Keynesian bent?
I loved that blog and miss it too. If this is you--welcome back!
Yes, and thank you
@@unlearningeconomics9021
Subscribed! (admittedly a few days ago as I assumed it was you). Wonderful to have you on RUclips. If you have any additional sites--like another blog, or some such, I'd love to be attuned to that too.
@@unlearningeconomics9021
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on Economics Explained? While they are primarily focused on typical neoliberal economics, they also tend to be neutral in regards to politics and it is nonetheless interesting to learn about the economies of different countries and all that. So if you know EE, what are your thoughts on them, both good and bad?
@@ajiththomas2465 I know I am very late to the party. But just have to say that EE is by no means politically neutral. And generally he is also just factually wrong a lot of time, about basic facts.
Have a look at "Money & Macro" "REALLY!? The Dutch Economy is the Most Unequal? - a Response to Economics Explained"
It is a general problem with EE, but it is easyer for me to simply link a good vid that show it, then to show ex. from his vids
@@GreenLarsen
I get where you're coming from. I've always been a tad bit wary of Economics Explained, as their videos did have a right libertarian bent. Some of his videos were nice but others like his Labor Shortage video were ones that I disliked. Personally, I prefer Unlearning Economics over Economics Explained.
Loving me some brazilian representation! It's such a shame that Carolina Alves has an english wikipedia page and not a Portuguese one. Even more shameful, I might have to translate it, because I hadn't heard of her or her work before.
Carlos, she's been doing some lives in the channel André Roncaglia with other economists. She is fantastic!
Wow, I don't know if it's because it's become entrenched in their vocabulary that left-wingers don't notice it: But you just described a human individual of Brazilian descent as 'Brazilian representation' as though human beings were just individual shadows of their grand collective groups which they 'represent'. Maybe this gives some of the leftists who do not seem to understand the unease with which the more liberal, universalist and individualist of us look at your conduct and argumentation a better understanding.
@@deponensvogel7261
me: hey it's cool to see someone like me! not often that happens
you: oh my FUCKING god did you just... DID YOU JUST imply... that... oh god i'm gonna be sick, i cannot believe this... this goes AGAINST the INDIVIDUAL
grow a pair, bro 👍
@@LoganCrazyBoy I know, I just felt like sticking it to someone. That's what social media is for, innit?
@@deponensvogel7261 ...so are you an universalist or an individualist? There's a bit of a difference there.
I’m into anything calling Friedman out on his shitty ideas so thank you
Brilliant content! I had to binged watched the whole channel. Keep up the great work mate.
Mighty algorhythm, hear my voice
The voice speaketh through the holiest of spreadsheets.
It said bonk
I love that your cite all your references in the description. Fantastic channel, keep up the great work!
"Africa lacked the wheel before colonization" - what a Euro-centric thing to say. For a guy interested in economics, it's pretty pathetic that he has no understanding of the extreme utility and importance of both river transport and trade VIA canoes and small boats in West Africa, Congo, and Sudan regions; and caravans across West, Central, and East Africa. Did you ever consider, perhaps, that wheels aren't a pre-requisite to development? Why use a Wheel when the Niger and its tributaries take me everywhere in my canoe? This is some degenerate stuff. Economists need a historical education.
Do you have any further readings regarding those early transportation developments?
@@coscorrodrift Maybe this or the links in this videos description could help
ruclips.net/video/ry2cRP73h9s/видео.html
People like yourself are desperate to uplift or defend mediocrity or unaccomplishment as long as the claim is directed to a group that isn't white
@@someones5551 or perhaps im willing to acknowledge that there is more than one way to do things well.
@@chillin5703 No definitely the former
Needs more exposure. This channel is sooooo needed
Why is an economist (Friedman) apparently unaware of the very high economic cost of wheel-based transport for most geographies during most of history? Reliable wheel-based transportation is quite expensive to develop, and also expensive to maintain.
The conclusion “maybe parts of Africa didn’t use wheels because they weren’t that useful” seems to have escaped Friedman, which is ironic given how much of a proponent he was of the rational model!
If they could have invented the wheel independently but did not because it wasn’t beneficial, why did they start using wheels once they saw the colonists use them? I’m not here to pick on Africa but why are we rationalizing their lack of progress with ridiculous arguments like they didn’t need the wheel. Why can’t we look at Africa’s history objectively without making excuses for them? Whether their way of life was better or worse; and whether they chose to have less technology is a subjective issue. But, they certainly chose to start using the new technology once it was introduced.
@@superdude292 Funnily enough, I watched this today - to the extent what you're saying is true, it was only because roads and wheels were forced onto the colonies even though they didn't want them: ruclips.net/video/ry2cRP73h9s/видео.html&ab_channel=LonerBox
I should add that it's not ridiculous at all to say wheels weren't the best technology. That vid tells a story of a guy who was rolling barrels of gold because it required fewer people and was less likely to get stuck. 'Progress' isn't linear, based on what was best for Europeans; it depends on circumstances.
We are arguing about a specific tool and technique which is using wheels to move stuff. There are all kinds of ways to transport things and the wheel is just the most well known and iconic. So seeing that they weren’t using wheels is different. The real argument here is that Europe was much farther ahead in all kinds of ways than Africa and it puzzles people. On one side you have people who will say that the Africans were unintelligent and immoral, and that’s why they did not progress. Then on the other side people will say that they simply chose not to progress and it was not due to a deficiency of any kind. I believe the answer is more nuanced. I neither try to belittle the African people or bolster them up beyond where they actually were. Both of these approaches are racist in my opinion as they seek to place the African people were you want them to be rather then respecting their differences.
@@superdude292 the wheel is iconic because you come from a culture that has deemed it iconic. It's not clear it's the apex of civilisation if the terrain just called for other types of transport. I'm not sure why we need to draw a grand cultural theory from which civilisations industrialised first, it could just have been because of luck and factors outside their control.
Amazing channel and way too overlooked. I was considering a project similar to this myself but your channel definitely surpasses my capabilities.
That's very kind, thank you. But please go ahead I'm sure your vids would be great!
you should still make yours! we need more of this
Make. The. Videos. (!!!!!)
@@carlfratus7481 what does softball mean, in that context, google didn't explain it
@@mrbookish6701 softball means in this context to explain with less complexity, and make it easier to understand
My new favorite RUclips channel! I'm a political scientist and so many of the issues you identify in econ are problems in my discipline too. Keep up the outstanding content
This video really makes me realise how lucky I was to stumble upon my majors while studying my economics degree at university. I have a mainstream economics degree with a specialisation in econometrics, but I found heterodox economics out of curiosity at university under the name of "political-economy" and anthropology as an elective. After those initial units, I was hooked and majored in both haha
Way late to the party, but I wanted to note that the problems of race in economics have a particularly powerful and pernicious effect at the University of Chicago because of its law school. The race blindness and racism of much of the U of C economics department gets imported pretty much wholesale into the education of lawyers (law & economics is what the law school is known for) at the kind of law school known for producing--among other things--appeals and Supreme court justices.
Ugh, that Uhlig quote encapsulates in a short sentence everything I hate about what studying economics does to people. It was good to see people like Arin Dube call him out for it.
EDIT: On a more serious note, I wonder if, given the trends @UnlearningEconomics points out of minority economists being more likely to come to different conclusions on certain topics than the majority of the profession (which is white), whether or not a potential sociological factor that might play into the widespread racial discrimination in the profession is its general rejection of anyone with a non-neoclassical approach. Theres a good article by E. Roy Weintraub called 'Economic Science Wars' on how this anti-heterodox attitude has inadvertantly caused the history of economic thought as a field to become almost extinct and I don't think it would be difficult to extend Weintraub's analysis to racial issues. Although I'm an outsider so I might be completely wrong. On the other hand, maybe the problem is fundamental to neoclassical economics. It would make complete sense that a research program which starts by abstracting away every societal, historical and personal attribute of its subjects (human consumers) so that the sole aspect which remains is their ability to rank products in order of preference would be unable to explain the economic aspects of race by only attempting to invoke them as explanatory factors at the higher levels of analysis. But again, I say this as an outsider.
Fantastic work
76% of U.S. basketball players are black, so basketball managers don't discriminate against black players, but for some reason
"professors of economics discriminate against black students" ?
how to defeat "racism among professors of economics" ?
Wow, as a black man with a degree in physics and currently studying math in grad school, I didn't think I'd find a field with less representation for black people than STEM. That being said, I'm not surprised either. I think to make economics have an adequate understanding of race would push the field in a very left-wing direction and as someone who has studied Karl Marx and other left-wing theorists, I see economics as a field of study that is almost exclusively used in this society to cater to the interests of the capitalist ruling class. There are very few prominent left-wing economists who view our economic system and our society generally through a critical lens. The economists I do know of that have a good understanding and take on racism are ALL left-wing and that is something the ruling class cannot have
I just went through all of your videos, and as novice, i will for sure have to go through them a few times more. Thank you for your content!
I love hearing the slight tone shift when something really sticks in your craw.
I remember learning taste, statistical, and customer based discrimination in undergrad. I was fortunate enough to learn about these models as descriptive, not prescriptive; explanations, but not excuses. Was my experience unique?
I agree my experience of learning the models was they were descriptive. I also attended an HBCU (Historically Black College/University).
I'm Economics student from Brazil. There is literally slots for only black people in public colleges (51% of our population is black). There is also the fact that people don't want to study economics here period, is considered something boring and the impact economists had in brazillian history is very negative (there was a time the minister of economics advised the president to prohibit people withdraw their savings accounts, another example was the 2k% inflation a year in 93).
Most economists that graduate here in Brazil are trash anyways... They said the ideal ratio for dolar in exchange for our currency was 7 real to 1 dolar. we are getting close to that and guess what? our quality of life is regressing...
He talked more about the reality in US/UK academia. Most of the example are taken from prolific economist from these countries.
Using the average productivity of a group to reason about individuals = ecological fallacy
In Anthro we refer to Economics as " the Science that isn't". Most models are based on theories are presuppositional and only acknowledge data that supports their them, or fail to incorporate important factors into their analysis, or just claim to know how phenomenon that they are unable to measure affect said models.
Carolina Alves! Brazillian representation in real life, I love it.
♡
Fantastic video! I have another further reading recommendation. "Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism" by Quinn Slobodian has a chapter on race that is very eye-opening on the influence of economic thought on the structuring of the post-WWII world system. I recently read this and similar to this video it's quite astonishing how many deeply problematic things are hiding in plain sight when it comes to the development of economic thought.
What you referred to as the leaky pipe problem is also a statistical thing that just happens like for example the reason all of the best chess players in the world our mail is not necessarily because males are inherently better at chess but the vast majority of professional chess players are mail so they simply have a much greater likelihood of someone so far from the bell curve of Chess skill to be part of their group. Just due to more coin flips
Friedman actually didn't "miss" any of that, or at least the statement you clipped is not an indication that he did. It's possible to recognize that technological and certain other improvements in social conditions through cultural contact have improved the average condition and quality of life for people in a given area, through a certain period of time, while also acknowledging other problems like some of the ones you mentioned. Also, you took this clip out of context even worse than Laurie Macfarlane did. He is NOT endorsing colonialism, he is actually saying that it was costly on net for the countries that engaged in it. It seems clear from his other work that he strongly believed that any improvements in areas subjected to colonialism would have been BETTER achieved through mutual trade and transactions, the capitalism that he was a lifelong advocate of, and NOT colonialism or occupation. Colonialism is one of the failures of mercantilism as an economic policy, which is different from capitalism in many important ways.
If you asked someone whether they thought slavery was bad, and they said "well slaves actually got 3 meals a day and better education than they would have if they were free" without mentioning the negatives, would you think they were defending slavery?
What about if they said "actually it cost the slaveowners more than it made them?" Would that strike you as a principled critique of slavery?
Also, Friedman is the one that conflated colonialism and the free market in response to a question about colonialism, not me!
@@unlearningeconomics9021 *"If you asked someone whether they thought slavery was bad, and they said "well slaves actually got 3 meals a day..."*
If Friedman were being asked generally about what he thought of colonialism and this clip was his answer, I would completely agree with you.
However, in the place this is taken from, he was specifically responding to the assertion that colonial powers gained all their wealth by stealing it from other countries through slavery and colonial domination. He isn't trying to make a principled statement about colonialism here, he is addressing something entirely different-- the zero-sum game economic fallacy that is commonly employed in these sort of discussions.
Longer clip that includes the question and full answer: ruclips.net/video/4xeebU8VhmY/видео.html
*"Friedman is the one that conflated colonialism and the free market in response to a question about colonialism..."*
Where? How? In the longer clip, you'll hear him mention that Russia was the biggest contemporary colonial power-- not the more economically free countries.
@@hugesinker colonalism was zero sum, though. It wasn't a 'free market' and implying so is glossing over its sins. That's how he's conflating the two.
If he's arguing that capitalism *could have* proceeded without that exploitation then that's one discussion we can have, maybe I'd even agree. If he's arguing trade has benefitted poor countries, again I'm happy to discuss that. But the wheel reference clearly implies the colonies benefitted from colonialism itself. If he'd just condemned colonialism it would have been much simpler.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 *"colonalism was zero sum, though."*
The miseries of the colonies and forcing a wrong path of development is undeniable. The very specific benefits to prior colonies that he is pointing out in this clip appear to be specifically made to refute the notion of a simple wealth transfer benefiting the colonizing powers.
*"It wasn't a 'free market' and implying so is glossing over its sins. That's how he's conflating the two."*
He knows it isn't a free market. He is attempting to explain that wealthier free countries did not become that way because of slavery and exploiting colonies, but because of market mechanisms. In fact, the market mechanisms worked in spite of colonialism, which he regards here as largely an economic drag.
*" But the wheel reference clearly implies the colonies benefitted from colonialism itself."*
Looking specifically at technology and the other things he mentioned, there were benefits in the longer run. That doesn't mean that there weren't atrocities which made the arrangement a loss on net; and it doesn't mean that the same or even better gains would not have been achieved through mutually voluntary cultural contact instead.
*"If he'd just condemned colonialism it would have been"*
In a larger discussion, I think that he would have condemned it, but that wouldn't have answered the question he had limited time to address in this clip. It really isn't fair to use this clip from an answer to this question and attempt to cynically back-fill the man's entire opinion on colonialism.
I've been searching for anywhere else that Friedman may have mentioned colonialism to see if he did indeed regard it as a net positive for Africa, either in writing or lectures. All I get so far is references to this same clip. At the very least, this tells me that Laurie Macfarlane's assertion that he was a "fierce defender of colonialism" is bullshit. If you can find some supporting evidence elsewhere, I'll be happy to amend my positions on this. Friedman was a good man, who I regard as correct on many things, but not everything.
I hadn't actually read the title of the video. It's hard to describe the laughter that came with the reveal of who the quote was by.
Hi. Big Economics guy here. Graduated Summa from a top 30 university worldwide and specialized in poverty and public policy. I believe you have misrepresented and misinterpreted the theory of statistical discrimination.
First and foremost, all the critiques you mentioned and sourced were aimed at how the theory of statistical discrimination (hereafter, SD) does not explain the existence of racism and its perpetuation. Half of the explanation for this is sociological, and the other half is economic. Some racist beliefs exist for cultural reasons - racial supremacy stemming purely from the belief system of a society itself, such as colonialism and Nazism. The latter half, the economic portion, comes into form as a result of the former. In a racially supremacist society, the oppressed group will often be denied opportunities for economic advancement via education and employment.
In the United States, the historical and current oppression of Black people has prevented them from attaining the education and job experience necessary to be competitive in the job market. Now, this is where the theory of statistical discrimination comes in. If there is no accurate way to test individuals’ performance for a given job, employers will rely on “statistical” methods. I noticed that you did not mention this testing aspect of statistical discrimination at all, but it is very important. A non-racist can statistically discriminate because of the economic benefit, and here’s how. Let’s say Group A has overall better education and work experiences in society, and Group B has worse ones. Group B may have many individuals that beat these awful opportunities and manage to get a good education and good work experience equivalent to the better candidates of Group A. However, if there is no reliable way to ‘test’ that education and work experience, employers will not be able to distinguish between candidates very well. If the employer then chooses to discriminate based off of group membership and hire only from Group A, they will profit from it. Group B’s lowered opportunity means that the discrimination will more often be correct about a candidates viability than incorrect. You can see how this self-perpetuates without any disruption to the opportunity gap or the creation of a reliable “test.”
Think about it, what’re the most common ways an employer tests candidates’ viability? Resumes and interviews, which are chock full of bullshit, and employers know it.
How could you possible prove that economic discrimination follows cultural discrimination? There are those who believe that race was 'invented' or at least emphasized in order to justify the creation of an economic underclass of workers, turning your interpretation on its head: that racism is a consequence of competitive economic optimizations. Does your education offer any meaningful way to establish which narrative, if any, is true?
@@Disentropic1 You would be hard pressed to find any evidence that racial discrimination was literally invented for the benefits of economic discrimination. Humans being can be xenophobic and racist without ANY economic discriminations. It can simply spawn from ignorance, or just a cultural mistrust of outsiders.
Emphasized though? Sure, it’s safe to say that the elites of a racially oppressive society would be keen on keeping those racist narratives alive for their own economic benefits. Ultimately, it becomes a two way street. Economic discrimination serves to enrich and empower the elites, while keeping those cultural beliefs about race alive would help secure that system. That’s basically what the aristocratic planters of the southern states in America did, and I’m sure they’re not the only ones.
Average earning differences between groups of people is not necessarily caused by discrimination. Gays and lesbians will have earning advantages over straight people (or more specifically, people with children, so also straight women without children have an advantage over mothers), and East-Asians over whites. All these groups are not "supremacies" in society, nor adored by the white majority who'd cheat in their favor. That doesn't mean that racism or discrimination doesn't exist whatsover. It's just far more complicated than "nothing to see here" but also than "there are average differences, therefore they're caused by unfair discrimination." You'd probably be able to create sub-groups of white people based on geography or some economic relevant factor that would similarly not level up over time in earnings with other whites, for example. Therefore you could similarly find groups of whites that live under circumstances that are more analog to those of black people, arguably showing that racial discrimination itself isn't the main factor explaining the different averages or trends in income variation over time between both arbitrary groups.
Blacks are a minority; a 2008ish paper claimed to have explained the tremendous difference in average chess scores of male and female players by the differences in absolute numbers of players, males are the vast majority, and that leads to a propensity or maybe even mathematical necessity that they're more likely to reach higher rankings (raising the average) than a smaller subset. I find it's almost necessarily the case with earnings to some degree, if you'd shuffle the population at large or separate them into arbitrary groups, the larger groups would tend to have also higher average earnings, just as there would be increased odds of the larger groups having had someone who had won the lottery.
None of that is arguing implicitly that racism isn't relevant or doesn't exist, only that it's not simply directly measured by average differences. Theoretically you could have had a magical perfect elimination of racism at a given point in time, and, owed to inertia of previous economic conditions, including penalties of legal institutional racism, there would still be racial disparities, just as could be disparities between any other arbitrary groups within races, even more so for arbitrary groups partly defined or correlated by different economic "starting points."
I can see this channel having 100k subs within 6 months.
Great video! Thanks again for creating some kind've opening into this really opaque field.
I guess I can binge this channel while waiting for the next Shaun or three arrows video.
When we look at statistics of how marginalized people are underrepresented in various fields and in higher-paying jobs, we also need to keep in mind that some of these fields and positions are quite toxic and are born out of and serve systems we don't support. Consider investment banking, much of the energy sector, most of the tech industry, etc. For some, to strive for such positions is to embrace (or at least swallow) colonization and serve its toxic purposes. It's self-destructive and a disservice to our own communities, while never offering the same financial and social benefits granted to others. Yet to live a different lifestyle is to be unsupported by society and presumed less capable or less important. A catch-22...
The video was great, except for that little bit with the "coloUrblindness", which sparked in me the will to overthrow a monarch. For real, though, I only have one major gripe with what you tried to point out in the video. The idea that India was an extremely wealthy nation before the arrival of the colonizers is true, but not in its entirety. By metrics of sheer output, then by all means, yes, India was probably only behind China. But the truth is that, ever since the establishment of the caste system, Indian regimes had been absolutely exploitative, with their populations living literally dirt-poor lives. Quite frankly, I can't see that much of a difference between the Mughals and British, both being ruthless ruling classes who oppressed the people of India endlessly, besides skin color.
just a few more famines nothing to worry about
I mean, you could say that both the Mughal and British empires are just as brutal, but the difference is that the British system of exploitation is far more systematic and relevant to the modern political economy compared to the Mughals.
@@theroamingtofu9628 I don't agree that the British were worse, but I do agree that the Mughal Empire is not as relevant to modern India as the British one. What I'm trying to point out isn't that the British weren't bad, just that, most of the time in the nineteenth century, the colonizers simply perpetuated the local systems of oppression. And, even after they left, those systems kept on going. Just look at Africa today to see men from ethnic minorities ruling over tribes they have nothing to do with, not too dissimilar to what the Europeans did.
@@lucasnobrega1515 It is not true that colonizers perpetuated local systems of opression. They uprooted them and replaced them with their own, and once they were "gone" the colonizer style of exploitation remains.
@@lucasnobrega1515 dude, are you seriously defending colonialism? 🤨
Your channel is going to blow up my man
the system is the problem, but these 'economist' are the theologians that exist to protect it.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
-stephen jay gould
💯
I'm glad I waited until the end of your video to ask questions --- you've done an excellent job explaining your thesis and counterpoints to it. I've learned so much!
I do have a couple of questions that I'd love your opinions on:
1) capitalism is an excellent tool for perpetuating a power differential. Is economics the study of capitalism, and if so is it reasonable to expect the marginalized to devote their lives and ambitions studying the language of their oppressors?
2) is economics prescriptive or descriptive? Much in the same way that linguistics can either define a word for others to use, or describe the way people are colloquially using that word, is economics a set of rules defining what governs the market, or is it a description of how people use it? For the purposes of this video, is economics inherently racist for perpetuating a certain power dynamic, or is it only describing a power dynamic already in place?
Again, I really appreciate this video. You've made me question a few lines of thought I didn't know I had, and made me think up these crazy questions. Keep it up!
- one of those awful u of chicago grads (in physics. Not one of those fuckers in econ)
very interesting questions. i hope they get answered by him. My (basic and as a non-econ student as well) take on them would be something like:
1) yes, IMO you do need to know the language of the oppressors to verbalize the situation of oppression and to know how to respond to invisibilization.
2) what i took from the video (and maybe a couple others that were posted after this) was that the discipline of economics in academia (publishing papers studying economic phenomena) is technically the discipline that only studies the power dynamic, BUT that it studies it in a biased way, coming to dubious conclusions. so on that sense it would be descriptive but with wrong descriptions. But also economists do influence actual policy and in that sense those racist studies would have a prescriptive aspect to it, and those previously merely descriptive papers and studies would be used to perpetuate those power dynamics. That's how I understand it at least.
Hi, coming a bit late to the party, but I’d like to offer my take on your unanswered questions as an Econ Major.
1) No, economics as a field may contain any topics that have to do with resource allocation. However, it is fair to point out that majority of countries adopted capitalism, so that’s where the most of the research will lie, respectively that’s where the majority of research that will receive any significant interest will lie. In regards of the educational side, the basic concepts you will learn are generic enough to be applicable across systems, and at the same time any attempt to apply them will necessitate further study on your own, so if you choose to focus on non-capitalist systems, your position won’t be particularly worse than that of those studying topics related to capitalism *with regards to course material applicability*.
2) economics are categorised into positive and normative economics, where positive refers to descriptive, and normative refers to prescriptive. Stuff taught in college courses is mostly positive. Research is positive (at least good research), but may include policy recommendation.
Whether economics is inherently racist - no, the study of how societies allocate resources is not in itself racist. Same as any field really, at least of those that deal with people in one way or another. Medicine isn’t inherently racist, yet there might be conclusions or practices that are. Same applies for economics.
@@davidzajicek7738 yes thats how the discussion should be, but often it was not, as shown in the beginning of the video
We give people several years of schooling on how to understand and benefit from capitalism, and then get surprised when they want to maintain the existence of a lower class
Really enjoy videos that come with specific reading recommendations. Its easy to just watch something and have it linger in the back of your mind only really taking a nebulas form. Following up with reading material after a primer like this always raises a greater range of ideas to explore and get a real sense of fitting into a broader worldview.
I don’t think the under representation of a certain group of people is the direct fault of those that are successful in a particular profession.
please do Thomas Sowell.. initially, the youtuber android politician had already done a piece on it.. his account was viscously downvoted. good thing the youtube analystics only look at interactions and not if people liked it or not.
Thomas Sowell is often cited as someone who "says it as it is" by white conservative people. I personally think that his opinions are detrimental to the development of undeserved communities.
@@VictorLopez-qm5kz that says nothing of whether what he thinks is true or not, just sayin.
I cannot find that when I search on RUclips. Link?
@@elhekoyya ruclips.net/user/AndroidPolitician
@@MineSomeCraftPoo these people's truth is determined by how it advances their ideological goals, not by it's proximity to reality.
"Objectively reasonable" they said. As though that's not a bullshit legal standard.
Pre-colonial Africa had little use for the wheel, so they abandoned it. Love your work.
So is the wheel useful in Africa in the current day?
@@June28July roads exist in the modern day so
@@sandshark2Engines too, which are more important than concrete roads.
If anyone is curious about the wheel claim friedman made, it’s true but only in part. Yes africa didn’t use the wheel often but the reason was because the invention was lost to time as need for the wheel decreased further and further as long distance travel and carrying could be more efficiently done with animals carrying the resources since wheels are only really useful for travel if you have smooth roads to use them on which wasn’t the case since the sahara desert is mostly rocks it would be difficult and through woodland or forest it’s not very useful either. This additionally has happened before such as the Roman Empire which discussed alternatives to wheels as they weren’t as efficient as they would have liked.
The generalisation of the entire continent reaction of a technology is presumptive as large structures were constantly built on the continent and the raw materials, vast tools and machinery were transported using carts all over the continent. From the Mali, Songhai and Great Zimbabwe. Friedman as well as you should just have prseumptive ideas on a society when clearly he wasn't a geologist, historian or anthropologist, nor are you
@@kitotapgono1467 yes but i knew a bit about this and wanted to share doesn’t make me an anthropologist. But your comment does make you a dick
The clip of Harry came to my mind as you were outlining Becker’s book and then you included it 30 seconds later lmao your essay hit every point missing from this discussion
" _Britain chose capitalism_ "
Marx: *TRIGGERED*
This is such a good video! Thank you for posting!
Found your channel recently and love it already 😳😳
Amazing channel, will be sharing it with all my leftie econ friends
boost boost boost, engagement engagement engagement
I guess if I had to recommend an economist to counter all the Chicago School non-sense it would be William “Sandy” Darity.
Also, I am new to this channel and hadn’t heard of George Stigler before so I went to his Wikipedia page and saw that Thomas Sowell was one of his students….I closed-out that tab as everything I needed to know about that guy I learned right there.
Amazing that you got Alves for this video ! Que legal!
An economist proposing a free market to get rid of problems despite it not solving any underlying issues? I'm shocked I say. Shocked.
Glad im here before this channel blows up!
You can't talk about capitalism this way without acknowledging that capitalism is purely about exploitation of the people.
Doesn't matter if you think it gives a better result or not.
You still need to accept the fundamental tenets of capitalism.
Unregulated capitalism strives towards creating divides in society.
Since minorities are easily exploited.
And socialism is about what?
@@DeepakPal-tg7hy
Socialism is about creating a better society for everyone.
With an emphasis on every one being of equal value.
Not everyone being equal or even live equal lives.
It aims to maximize personal freedom for everyone and not just the anti social paracites.
@@MegaBanne LOL. So socialism is good because you said so? What are it's theories? I too can think of idealistic worlds with infinite resources and no competition. But that's la la land.
@@MegaBanne If every being is of equal value does that mean a nuclear scientist will be treated the same as a serial rapist?
@@DeepakPal-tg7hy
Why do you ask me about theories.
I am as uneducated in the social sciences as you are.
It would be irresponsible for me to peddle some BS theory that I can guarantee you be oversimplified and far beyond inept.
Only idiots believe in over simplistic models like liberalism.
All I can suggest is that our effort to achieve socialism should be done based on science.
That we should be openminded, yet careful.
That we act with pragmatism.
Of course we won't reach the definition of socialism.
It is a bunch of fucking values and not some model.
To know the direction you need to go in to make things better you need to first have a concept of "good".
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No, what makes you assume that?
A rapist does harm to other individuals.
The rapist is a threat to our endeavor to become more socialist.
We need to lock that person in for pragmatic reasons.
It is a failure of our society, but neither is any society perfect.
We should work to change the rapist's behavior.
We may never succeed with that.
But such is life.
The only reason why capitalism manages to motivate people is because of lies.
You can't get happy just by simply making more and more money.
Yet people are foolish enough to believe that.
So obviously people aren't very pragmatic.
So I don't see how the capitalist society values nuclear physicist when it exploits them, over works them, and lies to them.
Colonialism didn't bring about slavery; slavery was very common throughout history. You phrase colonialism as bringing about what was already common.
Maybe the ideals behind colonialism was the same as that behind slavery.
The brutality, extent and the idea that the slaves where not equally human all went beyond what had ever existed before
@@impossiblynice
Jesus you never studied history have you?
@@thelawgameplaywithcommenta2654 I'm no expert I'll admit. But as far as I'm aware the extent at which they captured and transported the people, and made such a big economy was very new. Also, most other societies didn't relegate an entire race to the status of slavery.
Yeah your right, colonialism super charged slavery with european investment and expanded it to a whole other continent. Europe made it worse and they should feel ashamed of this.
This reminded me of the book Epistemic Injustice by Miranda Fricker
Suggestion, reupload/edit/caption with Abigail Thorn's name changed to suit her identity. Many thanks, your work is amazing.
Might be a lot of work to reupload and such, but I do think a pinned comment is warranted to correct for pronouns and name.
I'm addicted to your channel.
Racists: 5000 different ways to innocently/intelligently disagree (often by asking loaded questions)
Economic education is in need of a major overhaul. Thank you.
Excellent work! Have you considered doing a video about the Koch Foundation and other conservative/libertarian organizations’ influence on economics faculty and curricula? It’s a very ripe topic for discussing how economics has been so biased.
This talking point is getting old. More attack on libertarian ideas, not how some of us get our funding, and the climate change denial bullshit that isn't gonna change anyone's mind.
Great video! I'm learning a lot from your channel.
this video is amazing, keep up the good work!
Oh no a Nobel prize winner being bigoted, well actually it may be more common than one may think.
Good lord this is really good..... Subbed and followed!
Happy to be one of your twelve viewers, guy
Great content, thanks again.
Economists from Chicago really sit behind a lot of insane economic takes.
My favorite economist is Henry George. He spends a whole chapter in his magnum opus “Progress and Poverty” dismantling scientific racism and eugenics while advocating for a fully environmental interpretation. Really impressive considering he was born in 1830 and was heavily influenced by Herbert Spencer, a notorious eugenicist.
There are so many left/right divides which could be easily reconciled if more people knew about Georgism.
A fully environmental interpretation of what? That genetics play a role in what you can and cannot do and with how you look and how healthy you are is simply undeniable. They are the reason you grow into a human infant in the womb, rather than into a puppy or a kitten.
The genes you give future people are no less your responsibility than anything else. You are just as responsible for suffering caused by bad genes as you are for suffering caused by environmental polutions or toxic political systems, abusive parents, etc.
@@MrCmon113 eugenics says genes ARE all, we now know that the environment for life is just as important as the genes, ie a person can have a predisposition for heart disease, should that person be discriminated against when they have a healthy diet/exercise, unfortunately a lot of eugenic ideas still linger with us today
Your content is fantastic!!
Dude, You NEED a patreon
Maybe soon :)
@@unlearningeconomics9021 once you do, I’m becoming a member. You need to be compensated for all of this. You are incredible.
Thomas Sowell would like a word.
Looks like UE had his first
Also I love how much economists, who thought they were left leaning, suddenly being to squirm in the comments of this video.
Have you considered publishing the scripts for these with minor edits? Could get you some serious notoriety in the economics community.
This is an amazing channel, hoping the youtube gods bless you and boost your vids
I love this video. I’ve always felt that the way economics is taught is too objective and it never felt that way to me, growing up poor and black. I’m loving your channel, keep up the great work!
"Subjective" experiences are considered to be bad for sciences like physics because they do not reflect the objective truth of things like protons. But this somehow became the rule of thumb "oBjEcTiVe GoOd, SuBjEcTiVe BaD", and that leads to absurd conclusions when you apply it to the sciences that study humans. People completely forget that subjective experiences are an *objective reality* - it's not like our brains are a spooky fairytale kind of thing that is less real than, say, shoes. But I think that's how a lot of economists really think about it. Studying economics using only data that is "objective" - money, barrels of oil, etc. - is just deciding to ignore 99% of what makes up the economy: the thought process behind the choices we make. A statistical study is not going to teach you about that, you have to actually sit down and have long, long, long conversations with people. It's like studying the ecology of fish but saying "oh I'm not going to look at any actual fish, that's too wishy washy, I only track the activity of fishing boats and pet stores because that's objective (whatever that means), and from that I build a mathematical model of fish". Human psychology is waaaaay more complicated and difficult to study than anything you can punch into a calculator, but, like, it's *real* though, you can't just ignore it and still claim you're doing science.
@@blahblahsaurus2458 I agree. I always had a big hang up on the idea that the economy works based on the reasonable actions of consumers. As if all people acting in the economy are well informed and make rational decisions. It felt hollow. I’m loving this channel. He really breaks down these concepts in easy to follow packages and fills in the gaps.
@@Dwarfplayer humans are incapable of being objective. This video is an example of how we’re unable to be objective and so we need to be aware of our biases and how they create blind spots.
@@Dwarfplayer that’s a fun thing to believe but even our biases get in the way when compiling and analyzing data. Unfortunately, we can only be aware of our biases and allow more perspectives.
I'm really enjoying your videos!
How is it possible to make a 20min video on economics and race without discussing Thomas Sowell?
There was a bit I edited out for length on Sowell, Loury, and Fryer. I'm just not convinced their contributions are that great.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 that's a convenient way to deal with ideas that not only run contrary to your own but call in to question the very premises you build your arguments on.
@Christopher Stanley the entire anti-racist movement is predicated under the idea that disparities exist among racial groups and therefore racism is still rampant in our society. Sowell has written a multitude of books with data from all over the world showing how fallacious that idea is. It's not his ideas you have to contend with, it's the data he's compiled.
@Christopher Stanley what are you on about? Groups like BLM use disparity data as the only evidence for racism. All Sowell does is dig deeper and show how useless disparity data is in proving racism. The data is the same, it's how it's used that differs.
@Christopher Stanley how does someone gain "credibility" in your eyes exactly? Sowell was born in the deep south during the height of Jim Crow, was then raised in Harlem and was the first person in his family to get passed the 6th grade. He then goes on to earn degrees at Howard, Harvard and Columbia. He's had columns in several national papers, he testified in front of the supreme court and has appeared a long side many of the countries leading intellectuals on national television in various debates. If Sowell isn't qualified to speak on race then who exactly is? Your complete ideological possession is keeping you from making evening a tiny modicum of sense. Let go and open your damn mind.
This video demonstrates why economics needs to view itself as a sub-discipline of sociology instead of somehow being more objective in its scope. Our lives are impacted by cultural norms, the legal system, the educational system, the government, and yes, the economic system, all of which have been invented by humans. An understanding of an entire institution that makes it only about individuals and markets, with little mention of the external influence of other power structures, misses the big picture. At the bare minimum, interdisciplinary collaboration with on-brand sociologists could have kept each of the problematic economic theories of racism outlined in the video from making the discourse more toxic.
There is a misconception that smart people in in one field of science, understand all world-problems in the other categories. As they usually have a better educational background and are trained in verbal and written communication, their beliefs will be stated in a language that convinces authority or truth in the ears of the listener (but that doesn't make it more truthful). In Africa many high considered politicians even if elected democratically, preach for homophobic laws (and those people sprout not from a class that is social isolated or ill educated). Every person no matter the race has the right to make mistakes, but those mistakes get propagated more if that person has a better platform of communication. So if there is no exclusivity for good and bad at the source, one could think about the target: Why does society target the minorities, even apparently by "smart" people. Don't we count on them to not fall for or be persuaded by populist pitfalls and fake news? First of all there must be "something" for the professor to step outside the own comfort-zone of expertise. In my opinion it's not really mall intent, but rather driven by anecdotal experiences. If one black female economics professor tells she had to work hard, does that make it a valid general statement. And if you ask that professor: do you give a black and white student the same grades if their answers are the same (of course), despite that, how is the division of race of your students that graduate? Would it then be 50-50% by default? Idk... and if that is not the case, does that prove your biased evaluation or beneficial treatment? I'm just a very disagreeably person and thereby very mesmerised by your channel. It would be interesting to hear your take on Thomas Sowell and the geographic influence on the history of Africa. How economy evolves and shapes society in that situation and the problems of integrating a redneck culture. Is it the solution to force the early adoption life cycle on integration of every minority?
19:27 and the fact that they actually did invent the wheel in the Americas! They used it for childrens toys going back several thousand years because they had no pack animals (camelids are dicks) docile enough that would let you put a cart on them.
brilliant video
Just found your channel. Loving this work so far.
This problem is widespread in business professions as well, at least in the states. Only 2 percent of CPAs are black, about 2 percent of CFPs are black, and black Americans have fewer than 10 percent MBAs.
It is no wonder business professions are so biased in favor of wealthy white men
7:53 - the way you said 'f*kn id*@t' right there sounded like poetry - I've just subscribed!