If you’re wondering how Florida Gulf Coast University became the first 15th seed in the history of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to advance to the Sweet 16, look no further than the ur-text of the school’s economics department: Atlas Shrugged.
Embedded in this long, ponderous novel—required reading for all undergraduate economics and finance majors at FGCU—is the formula for transforming your college from a bunch of trailers on a swamp into the most talked-about school in the country. It’s simple, really. All you need to do is practice what Ayn Rand called “rational self-interest.”
via deadspin.com
Yes, Ayn Rand invented rational self-interest.
Here's more. One thing these simplifications miss is that most all economists teach free market capitalism. But, at some point most economists acknowledge that there are certain situations where markets fail to allocate resources efficiently.
Here is one more written by an economics faculty member comparing FGCU's coach to Hayek. Weird coincidence, I'm working on a piece comparing John Calipari to Joseph Schumpeter ... creative destruction and all that.
