Business Education and Neo-Liberal Propaganda

Tue, 2007-01-09 11:48

Left Turn

As part of the Library Technician program I'm taking, we have to take a business course. We had four courses we could choose from, and I picked the Intro to Canadian Business course because it fit into my swchedule the best.

Anyhoo, the prof starts off the first lecture with this following rant:

"If this were 10 years ago, we would be talking about how the BC economy is in the doldrums because of the overregulation of the BC NDP government".

Made me just about want to puke. If I didn't have to take this course, I wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole.

I'm thinking that this kind of thing is a fairly common occurrence in business courses, given the kinds of people who would teach business courses. It amounts to nothing more than neo-liberal propaganda. I realize that the whole point of business education is to prepare students for a business environment where this kind of attitude leads to success. But holy crap. What is our education system doing to the people who take these business progams? Are we creating a bunch of brainwashed business school graduates who swallow the capitalist neo-liberal propaganda without giving it a second thought?

[ 09 January 2007: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

Tue, 2007-01-09 11:49

#3

Cueball

Getting your MBA is merely joining the party youth organization.

Mon, 2007-01-29 12:32

#4

Le T

The Trent University business program offers a more critical perspective of business. Or so I hear.

I know a couple of the profs in the program and they are some of the best teachers at the university.

There is a lot of research by faculty into "green business", social responsibility and other progresivish things.

I've even heard stories of business students reading Marx in classes.

That being said, business students still wear suits to class and stuff, kinda creeps me out.

Mon, 2007-01-29 18:10

#5

Doug

I've kind of flirted with the idea of becoming a socialist with an MBA. It's just too bad it's so expensive.

Mon, 2007-01-29 18:13

#6

Unionist

quote:

Originally posted by Doug:
[b]I've kind of flirted with the idea of becoming a socialist with an MBA. It's just too bad it's so expensive.[/b]

Move to Montrйal. It's cheaper to become a socialist here.

Mon, 2007-01-29 20:38

#7

N.Beltov

Labour Studies programs examine some of the same subject matter as the pro-business propaganda of the Commerce Faculties and the like. It's quite instructive to compare these sorts of programs, look at how well-financed pro-business propaganda is (compared to the few, small Labour programs), and realize that the most brainwashed people are some of the "best" educated.

Sat, 2008-03-01 06:18

#8

Fidel

Well sometimes there's a first for everyone, and I'm going to heap praise on Liberal senator [url=http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=0bd9874a-5f12-493... Hubley[/url]. Elizabeth is calling for the elimination of post-secondary tuition fees. However, the senate still needs abolishing regardless of Liberal Liz' excellent attempt to jumpstart this debate in Ottawa.

eta: So here's to hoping we can start a thread on this narrowly focussed sub-topic regarding PSE sometime soon.

[ 01 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Sun, 2008-03-02 01:05

#9

adam stratton

quote:

Elizabeth is calling for the elimination of post-secondary tuition fees. However, the senate still needs abolishing regardless of Liberal Liz' excellent attempt to jumpstart this debate in Ottawa. -Fidel

[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] She couldn't even bribe you with that ? You are mean Fidel! [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Seriously, I believe that what we are experiencing now in terms of increased capitalist greed, outrageous widening of the gap between have and have not, the ever fading sense of corporate ethic is [i] [b]partly [/b][/i] caused by the capitalists' foot soldiers, the brain-washed MBA crops. Apparently the first Canadian MBA program in Canada was in 1948. We are reaping the result.

Welfare economics is still a marginalized discipline and the prospects that it would ever be mainstreamed is getting dimmer and dimmer.

[ 02 March 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

Sun, 2008-03-02 08:16

#10

robbie_dee

quote:

Originally posted by Doug:
[b]I've kind of flirted with the idea of becoming a socialist with an MBA.[/b]

You might consider starting out by doing some reading in the field of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Management_Studies]Critical Management Studies[/url].

Although I am not especially familiar with the field, this appears to me to be an attempt to apply a more left-wing perspective to traditional business school studies.

Tue, 2015-11-03 22:22

#11

NDPP

Western 'Mainstream' Extremism: Distortion, Fabrication and Falsification in the Financial Press - by James Petras

http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/western-mainstream-extremism/

"The Western imperial regimes (by which we mean the US, Canada and the EU) have exercised their political, military, economic and propaganda powers to 1) eliminate or limit the variety of capitalist options; (2) control the kinds of market-state relations; and (3) secure compliance through punitive military invasions, occupations, and economic sanctions against targeted adversaries."

It's all 'business education'...

Wed, 2015-11-04 00:32

#12

ikosmos

Yeah it's useful to point out that sanctions un-authorized by the UN are essentially acts of economic warfare. Western MSM almost treats it as a shopping choice or something like that, trivializing the disruptive effect on international relations it has.

Of course, the hegemon, the Emperor, the Moloch, the Great Satan, i.e., the USA, views itself as the global gendarme, responsible for the international order and is, therefore, above any trivial "international" law, or agreement, and is perfectly entitled to conduct, e.g, a blockade against Cuba for over five decades, urinating in the face of the global community, or forcing the European states to carry out sanctions against Russia for having the temerity not to allow the ethnic cleansing of Crimea, and so on. One wonders if targetted assasinations will become required reading ... in orthodox Economics courses. Because freedom.