Aditya Chakrabortty has written a powerful article for the Guardian this morning under the title 'Mainstream economics is in denial: the world has changed'.
He points out, as I have done often, the failings in mainstream economic thinking and its reliance on absurd assumptions of human rationality that are a prerequisite for the mathematical models on which it is dependent to prove that competition and markets are the basis of economic efficiency. That proof is, of course, necessary for most economists to serve, as appears to be their wish, the interests of the current economic elite in the world - who are the same people as those that caused the 2008 financial crash.
As he concludes:
How do elites remain in charge? If the tale of the economists is any guide, by clearing out the opposition and then blocking their ears to reality. The result is the one we're all paying for.
Quite right.
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The assumption of rationality in economics seems an undeniable reality. Nobody, in full possession of their faculties, would decide to reject a choice that made things better for them, would they?
Russell Brand may possibly be the most annoying individual on earth but in his ‘Paxo’ interview he articulated a growing mode of thinking. There is a generation rising that has no work, that is pushed from pillar to post by a bureaucratic juggernaut. They are disenchanted with a system that fails them in so many ways from zero hour contracts on minimum wage to a failure to replenish housing stock they can afford. They see no purpose to engaging with a failing democratic system. The new generation will look to the role models set by businessmen, politicians, journalists, accountants and others. Will they see the majority, slogging away day after day doing the best they can? Will they see the high flyers gouging huge rewards by deployment of increasingly elastic morals and ethics?
If ‘better’ is the result of a rational choice — define ‘better’.
If people are so enraged by what banks have done then why aren’t they getting their money OUT of the big five? They are angry on the one hand and hedging their bets on the other -change won’t come without CHANGE! Get your money out of those corrupt banks and put it anywhere other than with them!
Quite right! “clearing out the opposition and then blocking their ears to reality”
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