Of course she’s getting into politics! Just what we need, more wrongheaded, former professor, socialist politicians.

Alex B. Berezow of Real Clear Science reports.

Why Is a Socialist Allowed to Teach Economics?

If I offer a teenager $50 to mow my lawn — and an extra $25 if he trims the bushes — then I can expect to shell out $75. I just offered my little helper a handsome incentive, and there’s a very good chance he’ll respond to it. This insight on human behavior is so basic and obvious that it is listed as one of the foundations of economics in Harvard economist Greg Mankiw’s textbook Principles of Economics.

Unfortunately, socialists never learned this lesson. In a socialist economy, incentives play little (if any) role. Therefore, as University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark J. Perry wrote, “By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail.”

Yet, shockingly, socialists can regularly be found on college campuses. Kshama Sawant, an economics teacher at Seattle Central Community College, openly endorses socialism. She also is running for Seattle City Council and, with the latest election returns, claims 49.5% of the vote. With many ballots left to count, she could still win.

How on earth can somebody who rejects basic academic knowledge be so close to winning a city council seat? Even more troublingly, how can somebody with her beliefs be allowed to teach an economics course? This would be analogous to allowing an AIDS denier to teach a medical microbiology course, a 9/11 truther to teach a foreign policy course, or a creationist to teach an evolution course. (Amazingly, UMass-Amherst biologist Lynn Margulis had the dubious distinction of being both an AIDS denier and a 9/11 truther!)

Just how far out of the mainstream is Dr. Sawant? She favors collectivizing Amazon. “Collectivizing” is a nice word socialists use to mean seizing assets and turning control of operations over to the government.