Five Reasons Why Economics Is Political

Posted on December 15 2019

The next lecture from Ha-Joon Chang:

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6 Responses

  1. John D says:
    December 15 2019 at 12:36 pm

    Thanks for posting this. I’m ploughing through them – more to reinforce my understanding than to learn anything new – but it’s not exactly easy going. I have huge respect for Ha-Joon Chang whose contribution to new economic thinking is invaluable but – like so many academics (think Bill Mitchell, lol) – he’s not the world’s best presenter. I appreciate English is not his first language and that, in itself, is not the major problem. I think it’s the overall production of the series that falls short – with quite amateurish graphics. Also a weirdly small group of students!

    I suppose budget is always an issue but it’s more about how it’s spent than the actual amount. Back in my distant corporate days I was told: ‘The vacuum created by a cut in budget is filled by creativity’.

    OK, I’m probably being picky but if the objective is to reach a wider, lay audience then the marketing has to be right or else the opportunity is greatly diluted. Just saying!

  2. Darren Sharrocks says:
    December 16 2019 at 7:20 pm

    If the GERS figures are “rubbish”, though the Scots government/SNP and other economists accept them as being honest or should i say they reach an “acceptable” standard which the UK does not diverge. Then by implication all documents from government departments, especially the ones on scotland and breixt are untrustworthy and nobody should believe them.

    This is the cry also used by the hard right and of the people who voted conservative. Bojo said to Sophie Ridge on nation tv – a government document which state the border between GB and Ireland is wrong and he is right. So by definition the yellow hammer doc, and anti breixt documents are nothing more than being alarmist. It because of this potential bias, they are written by a pro brexit British civil service, one should ignore them completely. It’s seems believing or disbelieving in the GERS figures is more about what is economically – politically and what is is not.

  3. moschum says:
    December 17 2019 at 1:20 pm

    I wonder if he’ll deal with 2 issues which seem to be completely outside the mainstream purview – The monetary system (how money is created, MMT etc.) and Morality + Ethics, which seems to be a subject that only Jeffrey Sachs has tried to emphasize – and i advise all of you to check out the amazing 3 lectures he did for the LSE, which you can find on youtube.
    It is a root and branch systematic attack on economics as a subject and it really gets to the heart of the issue – what economics is about, what it is for.
    If Chang doesn’t cover these areas it’ll be a bit dissappointing.
    http://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2017/02/20170213t1830vOT/Economics-and-the-Cultivation-of-Virtue