12th Principles of Economics

Economics

Using 21st Century skills, students will understand essential economic principles and characteristics, the interconnection between government and economics, with a focus on real-world problems, developing ideas surrounding global sustainability and ethics with historical and current issues as a basis. In our global economy there are only a few widely accepted systems of economic theory that our modern civilization believes are viable for a capitalist system. These policies and practices for our public/private economic systems interact with each other everyday since Feudalism began to decline and shift toward Mercantilism. Because of this shift, the national economy and foreign trade system became the ubiquitous Capitalist market emerging out of the industrial revolution. Today with elite theory and capitalism running our free market systems, we are caught between two major philosophical, political, and economic ideas, Hayekian (set markets free) or Keynesian (steer the markets) economic policies. These ideas about markets work at the same time and oppose each other as well. This debate between the political left and right complicate the economic decisions we make when using our resources of land, labor, and capital. Our ability to understand the complex notions of a modern economic society is a very abstract and complicated proposition. With ever-changing government and private sector battles over our social safety net and free markets, science is telling us the consequences for the environment. Our choices to use nature might be the ultimate factor to consider and economists may have to go back to the original definition of “oeconomy.” The economic and political philosophers are still trying to explain the debate between the left and right on theories and actual economics principles. However, as a high school course we will only scratch the surface of economics.

Syllabus 2011

Syllabus 2013