Teaching about Economic Inequality

It's been well over a year since I last posted, but it's about time to resume....

I was struck by an article in the Guardian's Comment is Free about economic inequality.  It doesn't seem like a surprising topic for a paper such as the Guardian.  What grabbed my attention is the author of the article: Kenneth Rogoff.  I don't usually associate Rogoff with leftist economics or columns in the Guardian.  (Although after checking, he has published a few other articles in the Guardian.)  

Rogoff's arguments are not remarkable or unique.  In fact, he says a lot of things about the global economy that many people would agree with as being problematic:

Within countries, inequality of income, wealth and opportunity is arguably greater than at any time in the last century. Across Europe, Asia and the Americas, corporations are bulging with cash as their relentless drive for efficiency continues to yield huge profits. Yet workers' share of the pie is falling, thanks to high unemployment, shortened working hours and stagnant wages.

This trend is one that is a major part of my modern world history course.  In teaching tenth graders about world history, I'm less concerned in discussing the battles of the World War or the details about the lives of famous people.  Helping students to understand how the world has become so economically and politically integrated and the consequences of that integration seems far more important.  From day one of the class, I encourage students to think about the world they live in and how it functions and to ask questions about how this world came to be.

One of the key steps in helping students understand the modern world is analyzing the effects of the Industrial Revolution.  Trying to teach a sixteen year old about the global nature of industrialization is not the easiest task.  And few topics are more challenging to teach than Karl Marx and the origins of Communism.  Students have lots of preconceived ideas about Marx and Communism.  Most of those ideas are wrong, but that just reflects the broader American understanding of Marx.  Despite the generally negative American stereotype of Communism, most students are still excited to learn something about Marx.  That excitement disappears after a couple of pages of excerpts from the Communist Manifesto.  Imagine what goes through the head of that sixteen year old when she or he reads:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes.

Still, I know that I need to teach Marx.  You can only imagine my pleasure when I read Rogoff actually highlighting the importance of Marx:

Writing in the 19th century, Karl Marx famously observed inequality trends in his day and concluded that capitalism could not indefinitely sustain itself politically: eventually, workers would rise up and overthrow the system. Outside Cuba, North Korea and a few leftwing universities around the world, no one takes Marx seriously anymore. Contrary to his predictions, capitalism spawned ever-higher standards of living for more than a century, while attempts to implement radically different systems have fallen spectacularly short.   

Yet, with inequality reaching levels similar to 100 years ago, the status quo has to be vulnerable. Instability can express itself anywhere. It was just over four decades ago that urban riots and mass demonstrations rocked the developed world, ultimately catalysing far-reaching social and political reforms.

Reading Rogoff has reminded me about the importance of challenging students to look closely at the world we live in and to ask difficult questions about why the world is the way it is.  And hopefully, those students might try to change things.