Bengali-American educator Salman Khan is a brilliant reformer who wants to bring a free education to everyone in the world. With degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, and a background in the financial world, he decided to create a “free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere” through his Khan Academy.
His story is a classic example of democratic capitalism and the growing equality in the world. Rich or poor, you can now have access to a first-rate education. Thomas Piketty should take note! Inequality is shrinking, not growing, when it comes to useful goods and services.
Khan has been wildly successful and was recently named one ofTime magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
He has produced 4,800 video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects in mathematics and the sciences.
And now he is adding economics. But there’s the rub. As a professor who has taught economics, finance and business at Columbia Business School and now Chapman University, I was surprised how one-sided (teaching primarily Keynesian economics) his macroeconomics course is at the Khan Academy… with students reading and discussing only one book (Piketty’s “neo-Marxist” work, “Capital in the 21st Century”).
I just finished preparing a video course in “Modern Political Economy: Who’s Winning the Battle of Ideas?” for the Teaching Co., and I go to great pains presenting the entire spectrum of economic philosophy and schools of thought, whether Keynesian, Marxist, Austrian, Chicago, supply side, etc. I divide them into the Big Three in Economics (title of my book): Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes. Students love this balanced approach to learning economics. Salman Khan is doing his students a disservice by focusing on primarily one viewpoint.
In case you missed it, I encourage you to read my e-letter column from last week about how to avoid the most dangerous investment strategy.