December 16, 2011

Occupy Lincoln is starting a school

In an effort to model the kind of change it wants to see in society, Occupy Lincoln is starting its own school.

“We would like to make education equally available to everyone,” said Occupier and University of Nebraska economics professor Hendrik van den Berg. “How do you have a successful democracy without that?”

Van den Berg was one of 12 occupy activists at a local coffee shop in Lincoln planning and imagining how the school would operate. They are considering calling it either the Free school or Occupy Education. Anyone could teach a class, or take a class, and classes would be held all over the city – in space at the university student union, the public library and coffee shops.

A tenured professor who teaches mostly graduate school-level classes and writes books on economic theory, van den Berg will teach what local activists believe will be the most popular inaugural class for the free school. Instead of being called Economics 101, it will be called Economics 99, in a play on the 99 percent meme.

“I’m going to explain why we have inequality and why we have the system we do,” he said, noting that he will teach his class through a heterodox school of economics rather than the orthodox, or neoclassical model.

The neoclassical model, he said, is the one taught by most economics professors as well as the school of thought most Americans subscribe to.

“The neoclassical model says that governments should stay out of the way,” he said, “and that the free market will solve everything. That isn’t necessarily the case. It’s a belief that is much more cultural than scientific.”

The syllabus for van den Berg’s class includes lectures called: What Comes Around Goes Around – The Economy As a Circular Flow, There Are No Human Rights Without Economic Rights, The Privatization of the Commons and Can Economic Growth Ever Be Sustainable?

The group has not yet decided if it will make his lectures available on the internet.

— Bob Plain