[Opinion] Textbook Reform

Economics (1948), written by Economics Professor Paul Samuelson at MIT, is thought by many to be the best-selling economics textbook ever. It is easy and fun to read as well.

It was translated into many languages distributed worldwide because it covers all aspects of economics and is well-arranged. Thanks to Samuelson’s book, economics students worldwide have shared knowledge and value in the same textbook, overcoming their differences in languages. This book deserves appreciation as it provided the academics of many countries with a shared “language of economics.”

Textbooks are how the “official knowledge” of a society is stored. Good textbooks are those that contain rich knowledge present in a society in an easy-to-read and systematic way. An abundance of good textbooks lowers the costs of rediscovering knowledge. Little is more pathetic than for a person to make strenuous efforts all alone to rediscover knowledge that others have already discovered. “To avoid the vain labor of rediscovering, one has to find the way that leads to knowledge. For that, textbooks are the best guides,” says novelist Bok Geo-il.

Over the past five years, our society has been conducting a war of ideology through textbooks. There has been an overflow of left-wing textbooks on history and economics that deny the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea and distort the nature of the market economy. It is frightening to think of the influence of textbooks on future generations that downplay the sweat of out ancestors and parents as something to be gotten rid of. Someday these textbooks will charge us with the social costs.

It was a happy feature of this misfortune that intellectuals of the new right faction and the Federation of Korean Industries found the surplus of leftwing textbook threatening, and published history and economics textbooks based on the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea and the values of liberal democracy and market economy in recent years.

“Strengthening national competitiveness should begin in classrooms,” said Stefan Theil, an economy editor for Newsweek Europe. “The causes of the slow progress of France and Germany despite the call for reform by both leaders are anti-business and anti-globalization sentences contained in textbooks.” Reforming textbooks is cultural and mental reform that should be promoted at the national level in order to save the national fortune.

Editorial Writer Heo Mun-myeong, angelhuh@donga.com