I was thinking of doing a whole bunch of relatively short videos on PSST. The thought process that led me to this was:
1. The Weintraub volume on MIT economics showed how Samuelson shaped the direction of economics, in part with his textbook. I think of his textbook as “seeing like a state” in terms of economics. I think of PSST as the opposite view–very bottom-up.
2. I think one could write a decent textbook that focuses on PSST rather than on the production-and-distribution story that is the focus of neoclassical economics.
3. But nowadays, a textbook is not my medium of choice. The bigger closer library is the Internet, and YouTube in particular.
4. On YouTube, short, punchy pieces work better than long lectures. The challenge for me would be to break my ideas into bite-sized bits and still keep track of them–show the links among them, avoid duplication etc.
Anyway, I think of this as having about a 15 percent chance of going anywhere (it depends on whether I can remain convinced that it is a good idea). The next step would be to put together a draft outline.
What medium(s) help you the most, personally? Academic-style review, think tanky with sharp production, political screed, pop-econ book (that might actually work), podcasts (my personal preference for this kind of stuff), John Mauldin-esque macro analysis newsletter (the heavy lifting ad well as the light work could be crowd sourced, etc.
Of whatever options you decide align with your goals and temperament, I wonder if you could set up a kickstarter where the most highly funded proposal wins a “prototype.” If you get little traction on the first couple iterations you, for example, cut your losses as a successful intro as opposed to a failed series.
Not what you want, but I Google for a journal of heterodox economics, and Cowen’s first law remains unfalsified.
I say go for it. Of course, it’s easy for me to say because I don’t have to do the dirty work. Or maybe JV with Tyler Cowen. You obviously don’t need Tyler for the content, but I’ve seen some of his videos, and he appears to have some sort of a team or technical support to do some simple but still nifty graphics. Although some say cool graphics aren’t necessary (ala Kahn Academy style) I think the graphics are useful, and help break up the monotony of just listening to someone talking. These are just random thoughts for your consideration.
I’ve noticed that economists generally have no knowledge of accounting, so they tend not to make intelligent arguments about things like return on capital. Maybe a discussion of bottom-up economics would include accounting and how it is useful in understanding firms and economics.
If you missed it, I’d read this before making the videos.
https://www.edx.org/blog/how-mooc-video-production-affects#.VSE6HtzF-Sr
If you are trying to influence the economics profession, I’m not sure short videos will do it. Partly because there are a lot of high-powered people who find videos annoying: “I can get the information faster and better from text.”
More because PSST is not mainstream. The argument for it is going to be involved, with a lot of steps. A succession of 6-minute videos may not be the best way to make the argument. (Though a transcript of all of them in order is essentially a book.)
I should add that I would love to see “a decent textbook [or moral equivalent] that focuses on PSST.”
I think the one that comes closest is Xiaokai Yang’s “Economics: New Classical Versus Neoclassical Frameworks”. I would in fact like to know what Arnold thinks about this book.
One thing Yang’s work does (for me) is highlight just how difficult modeling PSST-type ideas in a tractable fashion can be. That’s one reason it’s not a mainstream view.
As the average person needs to hear something 5 times before sinking in, duplicate away.
I would watch it. Seems relatively low cost, and you’ll benefit from having to organize your thoughts.