WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.950 --> 00:00:03.540 Hello and welcome to this lecture 2 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:06.873 on social science paradigms. 3 00:00:08.190 --> 00:00:12.270 So we're gonna learn about some different ways 4 00:00:12.270 --> 00:00:14.640 of seeing the world. 5 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:18.270 Some gonna just go over a few of them 6 00:00:18.270 --> 00:00:19.950 and why they matter, 7 00:00:19.950 --> 00:00:24.950 why we as social science researchers should understand them. 8 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:30.420 Why knowing where somebody stands and the lenses they use 9 00:00:30.420 --> 00:00:34.020 and the way that they understand the world 10 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:37.350 can give us a more nuanced understanding 11 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:40.920 of their experience of the world 12 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:44.910 and their experience of various social phenomena, 13 00:00:44.910 --> 00:00:47.673 which is what we social scientists do. 14 00:00:52.110 --> 00:00:55.860 So, I like this comic. 15 00:00:55.860 --> 00:01:00.450 It just shows that so much of what we know 16 00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:02.340 and so many of the ways that we think 17 00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:04.950 of ourselves is in relationship 18 00:01:04.950 --> 00:01:09.950 to other individuals to our society, 19 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:15.030 that it's really very hard for us 20 00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:17.160 to describe ourselves 21 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:21.720 outside of any sort of social structure. 22 00:01:21.720 --> 00:01:25.654 And that knowing sort of where we stand 23 00:01:25.654 --> 00:01:29.280 and maybe where how we see the world 24 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:30.690 and why we see the world 25 00:01:30.690 --> 00:01:34.290 and why our research subjects see the world the way they do, 26 00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:36.900 and have the understanding and count as true 27 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:39.880 and count as knowledge the way that they do 28 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:44.643 will help us be better social science researchers. 29 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:50.760 So we're gonna first talk about what is a paradigm 30 00:01:50.760 --> 00:01:54.513 and some common social and economic ones. 31 00:01:58.967 --> 00:02:03.180 So a paradigm is a fundamental frame or model 32 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:08.180 or a lens by which we organize our world, 33 00:02:08.790 --> 00:02:10.290 what we know, what we think, 34 00:02:10.290 --> 00:02:13.590 what we observe, how we understand it. 35 00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:15.720 In many cases, 36 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:19.320 for ourselves, they can be so obvious 37 00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:22.950 that we don't see them, that at the founding 38 00:02:22.950 --> 00:02:27.950 of the United States, this first bullet here 39 00:02:28.350 --> 00:02:31.990 of freedom, 'cause the ability of white male 40 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:36.300 landowners. 41 00:02:36.300 --> 00:02:39.180 That was a pretty new thing then. 42 00:02:39.180 --> 00:02:42.360 Now I think the ability 43 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:44.263 to elect our own leaders 44 00:02:44.263 --> 00:02:47.433 is not a very radical notion. 45 00:02:49.110 --> 00:02:52.440 There was a time when women should have the same rights 46 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:56.370 as men, again, was a very radical notion. 47 00:02:56.370 --> 00:03:01.350 And now I think at least in general, 48 00:03:01.350 --> 00:03:05.380 most people would broadly agree with that. 49 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:08.370 Although how it plays out 50 00:03:08.370 --> 00:03:11.100 and how those rights are defined 51 00:03:11.100 --> 00:03:12.750 and what those rights are, again, 52 00:03:15.385 --> 00:03:17.885 are very much a subject of current social dispute. 53 00:03:20.580 --> 00:03:24.000 But we'll leave that discussion 54 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.796 for another day. 55 00:03:26.796 --> 00:03:28.770 And we, as social scientists, 56 00:03:28.770 --> 00:03:33.000 it's important that we see them and recognize them. 57 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.521 Because first, it can help us understand 58 00:03:35.521 --> 00:03:39.540 What others do, how they believe, 59 00:03:39.540 --> 00:03:41.460 how they behave, what they're aware of, 60 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:46.080 what they perceive, can help us to see new things. 61 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:49.260 And by understanding our own paradigms, 62 00:03:49.260 --> 00:03:52.530 we can understand our own biases. 63 00:03:52.530 --> 00:03:55.743 And we talked at length about confirmation bias. 64 00:03:56.820 --> 00:04:01.530 And so by understanding them, it helps us 65 00:04:01.530 --> 00:04:06.480 to be more reflexive, which is one of the key ways 66 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:10.443 to combat confirmation bias. 67 00:04:13.290 --> 00:04:17.760 So again, for ourselves by understanding where we stand, 68 00:04:17.760 --> 00:04:22.500 it helps us to avoid our own confirmation bias. 69 00:04:22.500 --> 00:04:25.320 Not just see what we intend to see or wanna see, 70 00:04:25.320 --> 00:04:28.980 but see other people points of view. 71 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:33.390 And for our research subject, it's key for two reasons. 72 00:04:33.390 --> 00:04:36.780 First, social desirability bias. 73 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:41.033 That there's a well-known bias of human subjects, 74 00:04:43.080 --> 00:04:46.653 of social science research subjects. 75 00:04:47.640 --> 00:04:50.520 That what we want is for them 76 00:04:50.520 --> 00:04:53.460 to tell us the truth about what they know 77 00:04:53.460 --> 00:04:54.900 and understand and do. 78 00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:58.343 But in many cases, they will either 79 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:04.473 say what they think makes them look good, 80 00:05:06.630 --> 00:05:09.840 makes them a good person, would they donate 81 00:05:09.840 --> 00:05:14.840 to some charity or take a noble action? 82 00:05:16.110 --> 00:05:17.460 They might say they would, 83 00:05:17.460 --> 00:05:19.530 but they may not actually do it. 84 00:05:19.530 --> 00:05:22.560 As well as strategic responses 85 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:27.560 where people will sort of give an answer 86 00:05:28.830 --> 00:05:32.370 that would contribute 87 00:05:32.370 --> 00:05:35.620 to their sort of political agenda. 88 00:05:47.097 --> 00:05:49.113 For example, 89 00:05:50.580 --> 00:05:55.580 somebody might ask about a person in Burlington 90 00:05:55.937 --> 00:06:00.937 about their encounters with unhoused folks. 91 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:07.627 And if I just, for example, 92 00:06:10.621 --> 00:06:14.580 want the city to do more and spend more money 93 00:06:14.580 --> 00:06:18.780 or to take like greater action, I might exaggerate 94 00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:20.280 and say, oh, things are bad. 95 00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:22.770 You know, it's a problem for me, 96 00:06:22.770 --> 00:06:27.480 even if it hasn't been a problem for me. 97 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:29.400 And there's a lot of other examples in that way 98 00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:34.400 where our subjects will say sort of something 99 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:40.157 that contributes to a political agenda 100 00:06:44.220 --> 00:06:47.610 rather than what is actually true for them. 101 00:06:47.610 --> 00:06:49.740 And again, what we want is for them 102 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:52.113 to actually say what's true for them. 103 00:06:59.003 --> 00:07:01.110 So here are a few that we're gonna go through 104 00:07:01.110 --> 00:07:04.900 and we're gonna highlight on these three 105 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:09.270 positivism, constructivism 106 00:07:09.270 --> 00:07:13.980 and lumping together a few things 107 00:07:13.980 --> 00:07:17.130 like feminist and critical race 108 00:07:17.130 --> 00:07:20.793 and just critical studies in general. 109 00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:25.560 So let's start with positivism. 110 00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:27.090 And that assumes 111 00:07:27.090 --> 00:07:31.560 that there is a single knowable objective reality. 112 00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:35.070 That reality is one single way 113 00:07:35.070 --> 00:07:38.940 and it's based on scientific 114 00:07:38.940 --> 00:07:41.700 observation and reason. 115 00:07:41.700 --> 00:07:45.240 And we get our data through 116 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:49.170 and empirical observation 117 00:07:49.170 --> 00:07:51.120 through measurement. 118 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:56.040 This tends to work well for sort of biophysical sciences 119 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:59.130 and such, but not so well 120 00:07:59.130 --> 00:08:03.150 for humans that wait, 121 00:08:05.903 --> 00:08:08.733 like to think about the last slide, 122 00:08:10.102 --> 00:08:13.820 I doubt if the planet Mars 123 00:08:16.350 --> 00:08:18.461 would change its orbit 124 00:08:18.461 --> 00:08:22.053 because we are observing it, 125 00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:26.590 because we think it would think that it would look better 126 00:08:27.544 --> 00:08:29.749 or it'll sort of misrepresent 127 00:08:29.749 --> 00:08:33.213 what it does or has an agenda, 128 00:08:35.190 --> 00:08:38.340 these sort of tools are better 129 00:08:38.340 --> 00:08:41.220 for these sort of biophysical sciences 130 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:44.583 and maybe not as good for social sciences. 131 00:08:47.730 --> 00:08:49.290 Constructivism says 132 00:08:49.290 --> 00:08:53.979 there may be a single external reality. 133 00:08:53.979 --> 00:08:57.977 And while I think a key assumption 134 00:08:57.977 --> 00:09:02.977 of positivism is if we all had the same tools 135 00:09:04.170 --> 00:09:05.910 and looked at things at the same way, 136 00:09:05.910 --> 00:09:09.930 we would come up with the same conclusion. 137 00:09:09.930 --> 00:09:14.640 Whereas constructivism says, well, that may be, 138 00:09:14.640 --> 00:09:19.380 but that there may be this sort of single external, 139 00:09:19.380 --> 00:09:24.330 but all that we know every bit of every word, every idea, 140 00:09:24.330 --> 00:09:27.300 everything that we know, our concept, our language, 141 00:09:27.300 --> 00:09:32.190 what we know is true are all human social constructs. 142 00:09:32.190 --> 00:09:35.703 And it tends to be much more pragmatic, 143 00:09:37.266 --> 00:09:42.266 it's what works, it's sort of true in this situation 144 00:09:42.947 --> 00:09:47.490 rather than always true in all ways. 145 00:09:47.490 --> 00:09:51.450 But then again, this sort of table here to the left 146 00:09:51.450 --> 00:09:53.883 has more information on this. 147 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:03.503 So this is an example of social constructivism. 148 00:10:06.300 --> 00:10:10.350 Each of these individuals is sure that what they're saying 149 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:12.000 and what they're seeing is right, 150 00:10:14.970 --> 00:10:19.500 which leads us to the sort of alternative paradigms. 151 00:10:19.500 --> 00:10:24.500 And there's a whole sort of social 152 00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:29.370 and psychological and other sorts of research 153 00:10:33.189 --> 00:10:36.900 and thinking under the feminist view, 154 00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:41.900 which basically says that so much of what we know, 155 00:10:42.406 --> 00:10:45.900 the construct of our society 156 00:10:45.900 --> 00:10:49.830 and all of our institutions 157 00:10:49.830 --> 00:10:53.910 and what counts as true, have really been developed 158 00:10:53.910 --> 00:10:56.950 by a very male centric society. 159 00:11:00.930 --> 00:11:05.070 And looking at how the perspectives 160 00:11:05.070 --> 00:11:10.070 of women, the issue of gender, 161 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.490 the concern of inequality 162 00:11:16.490 --> 00:11:18.360 and how the sort of power 163 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:23.101 and privilege in our society 164 00:11:23.101 --> 00:11:26.940 has shaped what our society looks like. 165 00:11:26.940 --> 00:11:30.270 What we think is true, what are the institutions, 166 00:11:30.270 --> 00:11:31.770 what are the norms? 167 00:11:31.770 --> 00:11:36.540 What are the behaviors that we have as a result of this? 168 00:11:36.540 --> 00:11:41.324 And what have been the effects of this 169 00:11:41.324 --> 00:11:46.324 on women and how does it vary by gender 170 00:11:46.560 --> 00:11:48.003 and such matters like that. 171 00:11:51.018 --> 00:11:53.550 In the same way it could be said 172 00:11:53.550 --> 00:11:58.550 that those same sort of institutions and knowledge 173 00:11:58.680 --> 00:11:59.850 and all that we know 174 00:11:59.850 --> 00:12:01.997 and the way we structured society 175 00:12:05.070 --> 00:12:08.340 also has a very white-centric view. 176 00:12:08.340 --> 00:12:12.660 And just in general, 177 00:12:12.660 --> 00:12:17.100 the word critical in this context 178 00:12:17.100 --> 00:12:21.120 means sort of non-traditional, at odds 179 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:23.640 with the mainstream paradigms. 180 00:12:23.640 --> 00:12:25.846 But sort of how does someone 181 00:12:25.846 --> 00:12:30.846 who is of a different gender or a different race 182 00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:34.170 or a different ethnicity, 183 00:12:34.170 --> 00:12:38.310 how do they see the world differently than you? 184 00:12:38.310 --> 00:12:40.560 How does their lens change? 185 00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:44.070 I think that we could talk about many, many examples 186 00:12:44.070 --> 00:12:45.723 where that is true. 187 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:52.940 So here are just a few examples of ways 188 00:12:53.350 --> 00:12:58.350 in which sort of critical theories bring things to light 189 00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:02.703 with some sort of new and not so new events here. 190 00:13:06.270 --> 00:13:09.750 So think about, and we will discuss in class. 191 00:13:09.750 --> 00:13:13.410 So I am a white male, 192 00:13:13.410 --> 00:13:15.183 heterosexual and cisgender. 193 00:13:16.876 --> 00:13:20.340 How would my perception of the world change 194 00:13:20.340 --> 00:13:22.530 if I were none of those things? 195 00:13:22.530 --> 00:13:26.400 Or if I were not all of those. 196 00:13:26.400 --> 00:13:28.500 Then I think in many ways 197 00:13:28.500 --> 00:13:33.500 that our sort of positionality in all of this 198 00:13:37.515 --> 00:13:39.030 changes how we see things, 199 00:13:39.030 --> 00:13:44.030 that I might see a statement that is sexist 200 00:13:44.850 --> 00:13:47.520 or racist or homophobic 201 00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:52.520 or antisemitic or anti-Muslim. 202 00:13:53.220 --> 00:13:57.570 I might merely see it as distasteful 203 00:13:57.570 --> 00:13:59.160 and disgusting, 204 00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:01.699 but I wouldn't find it personally threatening 205 00:14:01.699 --> 00:14:06.699 because it doesn't really personally threaten me. 206 00:14:06.780 --> 00:14:09.990 And I think that this is an example 207 00:14:09.990 --> 00:14:14.223 of who we are really influences how we see the world. 208 00:14:15.330 --> 00:14:17.610 And knowing who someone 209 00:14:17.610 --> 00:14:19.140 is helps us to understand 210 00:14:19.140 --> 00:14:20.943 why they see the world like that. 211 00:14:22.077 --> 00:14:25.890 Why their perceptions have been shaped in that way. 212 00:14:25.890 --> 00:14:29.520 And again, as good social scientists doing the best we can 213 00:14:29.520 --> 00:14:32.790 to really understand what do they think and feel 214 00:14:32.790 --> 00:14:35.463 and believe and how do they act and why? 215 00:14:37.710 --> 00:14:42.710 So remember the difference between positive and normative, 216 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:46.200 and we're gonna use this in our next exercise. 217 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:50.880 So a positive view is simply how things are, 218 00:14:50.880 --> 00:14:54.450 whereas a normative view is much more 219 00:14:54.450 --> 00:14:58.920 how should things be, that normative has sort of a value 220 00:14:58.920 --> 00:15:02.163 to judgment of how things could be made better. 221 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:09.210 So we're going to talk about first 222 00:15:09.210 --> 00:15:14.210 the dominant economic paradigm 223 00:15:16.110 --> 00:15:20.400 and the dominant social paradigm 224 00:15:20.400 --> 00:15:23.820 of our time, neoclassical economics 225 00:15:23.820 --> 00:15:27.183 and neoliberalism. 226 00:15:28.170 --> 00:15:30.660 And then we're gonna just dabble a bit 227 00:15:30.660 --> 00:15:32.880 institutional economics and talk 228 00:15:32.880 --> 00:15:36.183 really just name ecological economics. 229 00:15:37.650 --> 00:15:41.880 So our dominant economic theory 230 00:15:41.880 --> 00:15:44.807 is neoclassical economic theory. 231 00:15:49.410 --> 00:15:51.960 And this is based on certain assumptions 232 00:15:51.960 --> 00:15:55.560 that humans have rational preferences 233 00:15:55.560 --> 00:15:59.370 and can assign value to all that we do. 234 00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:02.382 That the rational behavior, 235 00:16:02.382 --> 00:16:07.382 this homo economicus as it's called, 236 00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:13.290 that individuals maximize our utility 237 00:16:13.290 --> 00:16:16.950 and firms maximize profit. 238 00:16:16.950 --> 00:16:19.320 And that is what a rational being does. 239 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:23.370 And here is where the normative part comes in 240 00:16:23.370 --> 00:16:26.220 that I think too often that this theory says, 241 00:16:26.220 --> 00:16:29.610 this is what we should do, not this is what we do do, 242 00:16:29.610 --> 00:16:31.440 but this is what we should do. 243 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:33.594 Note that too the assumption 244 00:16:33.594 --> 00:16:38.040 is that all these decisions are made individually 245 00:16:38.040 --> 00:16:39.540 and on the basis of full 246 00:16:39.540 --> 00:16:43.170 and perfect information that we can do this math, 247 00:16:43.170 --> 00:16:44.728 these sort of valuations 248 00:16:44.728 --> 00:16:49.728 in our heads that we have all 249 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:56.430 the information that we need. 250 00:16:56.430 --> 00:16:59.670 And if we have that, that there's a single right answer, 251 00:16:59.670 --> 00:17:02.820 that this is what we should do, this is what we should buy, 252 00:17:02.820 --> 00:17:04.080 this is how we should spend money, 253 00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:07.995 this is how we should assign our costs 254 00:17:07.995 --> 00:17:12.995 and so forth based on what a rational being does. 255 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:21.220 So this is a highly normative view, 256 00:17:21.220 --> 00:17:25.530 that it is first that society is best served 257 00:17:25.530 --> 00:17:28.282 by everyone pursuing their self-interest, 258 00:17:28.282 --> 00:17:32.220 that we should all be these rational maximizers 259 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:34.950 and that we can do this math. 260 00:17:34.950 --> 00:17:39.720 And note that this is a very deductive, 261 00:17:39.720 --> 00:17:44.070 that it's like this is how a rational being should act. 262 00:17:44.070 --> 00:17:46.052 And then in many cases, 263 00:17:46.052 --> 00:17:50.613 a neoclassical economic model 264 00:17:51.760 --> 00:17:56.760 says this is how a rational actor should act. 265 00:17:58.770 --> 00:18:00.300 And then it uses data 266 00:18:00.300 --> 00:18:03.990 to see, do these people act in this way 267 00:18:03.990 --> 00:18:05.340 that we think is right? 268 00:18:05.340 --> 00:18:07.378 Do they act rationally 269 00:18:07.378 --> 00:18:10.713 according to how we define it? 270 00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:18.030 But there are other economic paradigms 271 00:18:18.030 --> 00:18:21.756 that don't use this, that this is actually, 272 00:18:21.756 --> 00:18:26.756 we at UVM and CCDE have a wealth of experience 273 00:18:28.110 --> 00:18:30.570 and expertise in ecological economics. 274 00:18:30.570 --> 00:18:34.324 Dr. Farley, Dr Ament, among others, 275 00:18:34.324 --> 00:18:38.280 and you probably had classes with them, 276 00:18:38.280 --> 00:18:40.890 so I'll leave that go for the sake of time. 277 00:18:40.890 --> 00:18:42.755 But I do wanna talk to you about one 278 00:18:42.755 --> 00:18:46.050 of the economic paradigms that I use most, 279 00:18:46.050 --> 00:18:48.623 which is institutional economics. 280 00:18:57.690 --> 00:19:02.560 So rather than saying 281 00:19:03.630 --> 00:19:07.230 rational actors make mathematical decisions 282 00:19:07.230 --> 00:19:11.165 based on perfect information, 283 00:19:11.165 --> 00:19:16.165 we in institutional economics 284 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:21.150 see them as being very complex 285 00:19:21.150 --> 00:19:24.780 and an interaction of many actors, of firms, 286 00:19:24.780 --> 00:19:28.800 of individuals, of laws and in social norms. 287 00:19:28.800 --> 00:19:32.130 And it's much more of an inductive approach. 288 00:19:32.130 --> 00:19:34.290 What do we actually do? 289 00:19:34.290 --> 00:19:38.850 Why do humans behave in the way they do 290 00:19:38.850 --> 00:19:41.970 given this set of laws and norms and incentives 291 00:19:41.970 --> 00:19:43.560 and imperfect knowledge? 292 00:19:43.560 --> 00:19:46.740 So it sort of takes how do folks act 293 00:19:46.740 --> 00:19:48.750 and then trying to understand why, 294 00:19:48.750 --> 00:19:49.860 instead of, 295 00:19:49.860 --> 00:19:54.860 this is how the neo classical deductive approach is, 296 00:19:55.470 --> 00:20:00.000 this is what a rational being should do 297 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.300 and being rational is the right thing to do. 298 00:20:03.300 --> 00:20:06.150 And in many cases, sort of scolding them 299 00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:11.150 for not behaving as their model said that they should. 300 00:20:12.870 --> 00:20:17.070 And note that you may guess that I'm somewhat of a critic 301 00:20:17.070 --> 00:20:20.940 of neo classical economics 302 00:20:20.940 --> 00:20:23.567 and if I'm somewhat caricaturing it, 303 00:20:26.040 --> 00:20:29.043 it's to make a point. 304 00:20:30.060 --> 00:20:33.510 I do think that, certainly that approach 305 00:20:33.510 --> 00:20:36.300 and those models does and can have, right? 306 00:20:36.300 --> 00:20:38.130 And it can be be well done, 307 00:20:38.130 --> 00:20:42.690 but I think that it also has some very serious shortcomings. 308 00:20:42.690 --> 00:20:47.520 And if we put too much social emphasis on that, 309 00:20:47.520 --> 00:20:49.170 I think it can lead to many 310 00:20:49.170 --> 00:20:51.690 of the sort of dangerous 311 00:20:51.690 --> 00:20:54.333 social economic outcomes that we see now. 312 00:20:58.131 --> 00:21:00.777 So again, neo classical economics 313 00:21:03.450 --> 00:21:06.720 tends to be very normative and deductive 314 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:11.720 and institutional economics is more positive and inductive. 315 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:16.470 And I hope that all those terms 316 00:21:16.470 --> 00:21:18.600 and this phrasing makes sense. 317 00:21:18.600 --> 00:21:21.573 If not, let's discuss it in class. 318 00:21:25.260 --> 00:21:26.460 For the rest of this lecture, 319 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:30.600 I wanna talk about the dominant social 320 00:21:30.600 --> 00:21:34.013 paradigm of our time, neoliberalism. 321 00:21:38.850 --> 00:21:43.440 This quotation comes from an article 322 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:45.420 by a man named George, 323 00:21:45.420 --> 00:21:50.420 who I will say is a critic of this view. 324 00:21:52.570 --> 00:21:57.570 And basically it's been the dominant 325 00:21:57.780 --> 00:22:00.450 way in which we have 326 00:22:00.450 --> 00:22:05.450 governed ourselves here in the US 327 00:22:06.011 --> 00:22:07.890 for about the last 40 or so years. 328 00:22:07.890 --> 00:22:12.240 So I'm imagining most if not all of the students 329 00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:17.160 in my classes have never experienced a world 330 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:21.393 where this was not sort of how things were done. 331 00:22:23.100 --> 00:22:25.680 And so I'll let you read this. 332 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:29.370 Basically the bottom line is the idea 333 00:22:29.370 --> 00:22:34.333 that markets make better decisions than governments. 334 00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:44.070 That the private sector should allocate resources 335 00:22:44.070 --> 00:22:45.960 and make the decisions, 336 00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:47.820 not the public sector. 337 00:22:55.560 --> 00:23:00.560 So here are some, again, this is a sort of critical 338 00:23:01.170 --> 00:23:04.890 view of it, but it tends to work along these lines. 339 00:23:04.890 --> 00:23:09.270 Low taxes, little regulation, 340 00:23:09.270 --> 00:23:12.410 so things like environmental protection, 341 00:23:15.570 --> 00:23:19.106 food safety, worker safety 342 00:23:19.106 --> 00:23:22.800 tends to be taken care of by the market, 343 00:23:22.800 --> 00:23:27.750 not by government regulation. 344 00:23:27.750 --> 00:23:32.200 Basic human services are privatized 345 00:23:34.140 --> 00:23:37.410 sort of the deep valuation of education 346 00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:42.123 and infrastructure, whereas wealth is a virtue. 347 00:23:43.170 --> 00:23:46.430 And by accumulating wealth, 348 00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:53.880 you are better able, 349 00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:58.880 that shows that you have merit, that you have done well 350 00:23:59.370 --> 00:24:02.190 and that you should able 351 00:24:02.190 --> 00:24:07.190 to have sort of more power in the decision making sphere. 352 00:24:09.210 --> 00:24:12.750 And again, this is a very, I'll say it like this, 353 00:24:12.750 --> 00:24:15.960 that it's not my job to make you think 354 00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:18.113 this is good or bad. 355 00:24:18.113 --> 00:24:23.113 I'm describing it and letting you decide 356 00:24:23.190 --> 00:24:26.460 whether or not you think this is a good way, 357 00:24:26.460 --> 00:24:31.307 that this is how we should be structuring our society 358 00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:38.850 and we'll talk in class about this. 359 00:24:38.850 --> 00:24:42.180 But we've seen a radical change 360 00:24:42.180 --> 00:24:44.890 in so many of our institutions. 361 00:24:48.750 --> 00:24:52.920 Things like education, religion, sports, government, 362 00:24:52.920 --> 00:24:57.150 healthcare being run for profit, 363 00:24:57.150 --> 00:24:59.663 being run as a business 364 00:24:59.663 --> 00:25:03.970 instead of being run sort of to create 365 00:25:08.220 --> 00:25:13.220 public good that they are run, 366 00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:19.160 to maximize shareholder returns, not to sort of do 367 00:25:21.330 --> 00:25:24.003 the most social good that they can. 368 00:25:26.490 --> 00:25:28.980 Just as a disclaimer, 369 00:25:28.980 --> 00:25:31.380 this would be Milton Friedman 370 00:25:31.380 --> 00:25:34.887 who's a Nobel Prize winning economist, 371 00:25:35.990 --> 00:25:39.630 has another view that he is certainly, 372 00:25:39.630 --> 00:25:44.630 I would say in his time, was a supporter of this. 373 00:25:44.700 --> 00:25:47.670 And this were his thoughts. 374 00:25:47.670 --> 00:25:50.490 And again, I leave this all up to you, 375 00:25:50.490 --> 00:25:53.017 whether or not you think, 376 00:25:53.017 --> 00:25:56.940 which of these two views, you know, 377 00:25:56.940 --> 00:26:01.780 is the private sector being the dominant 378 00:26:03.093 --> 00:26:08.093 sort of way that we structure our society 379 00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:10.710 and make decisions. 380 00:26:10.710 --> 00:26:13.500 Is that a good thing, is that a bad thing? 381 00:26:13.500 --> 00:26:14.940 Is there too much of it? 382 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:17.040 Is there too, love it. 383 00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:20.463 I leave questions like that up for you. 384 00:26:22.410 --> 00:26:27.400 So again, we talked about why it's important to know 385 00:26:28.530 --> 00:26:32.979 and to understand why do people see the world as they do 386 00:26:32.979 --> 00:26:35.460 and that this is a recap. 387 00:26:35.460 --> 00:26:36.293 Thank you.