Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · Feb 22 The economics profession presents an idealised version of the economy, as beautiful as Dorian Gray’s unchanging face. The actual economy is increasingly ugly, like his portrait: marked by oligarchs and the underclass, the looting of poor countries, and the industrial-scale gobbling up of the planet
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In the Real World automobiles purchased by consumers wear out and therefore depreciate. In the Economics World consumer machines are consumed and treated like bananas. But then economists do not talk about the Net Domestic Product equation where the defective algebra might show up.
Assume that consumers are rational agents who use calculus and statistics to optimize, ignore the role of hatred and fear in decision-making…
Yet, on the issue of greatest import, the economics profession actually came through for us, only to be completely ignored by all sides. youtu.be/kGIBZyE9Ve8
Looks like great reading. Thanks!
Like a nuclear chain reaction, the economy depends on transactions multiplying. Buying, selling, and investing keep it going, but obstacles like inefficiencies or lost opportunities can slow or stop it. Managing these factors determines whether we see growth or decline. A Trump shutdown is coming.
As a foremost critical intellectual in UK,you can always explain your ideas eloquently and vividly.You are also a rare courageous fighter!Such a fantastic young lady who always sides with the voiceless and marginalized!Just go ahead fearlessly!👍
omFg. yes. It has been my opinion for years that these ivy league or oxford cambridge econs are epically stupid in proportion to their degrees, hubris, and somehow forgetting that great economies are human
Ha, I was telling someone today how as a mature undergrad I argued with professor that his graph illustrating Ricardo's Comparative Advantage was not the real world He said I should admire its beauty!
For anyone who self identifies as a critic of political economy this is a book for you!
Ooohh…thank you. Good to keep grounded in these very messed-up times. Totally unsure of the psychology of it but reading your book & other economists, is somehow ‘soothing’ me. I’m so grateful for your accessible communication/writing style. Life-impacting stuff. 💪🏾🤩
As I was taught in a class called " Rumors and Propaganda" my first week in Air Force back in 1971. The enemy will tell you lies that sound true and frame them around what you want to believe. The instructor declared that the Vietnam War was over because we dropped an atomic bomb on Hanoi.
Capitalism requires exploitation and upward redistribution to survive. They didn’t abolish slavery, they just offshored it. In spite of that, poverty has increased in western economies since the 1980s and yet the monetarist dogma remains unchallengeable.
Looks interesting
I always suspected as a regular person who doesn't know anything about econ that real econ got eaten by political economic ideology. It's ancestor was 1800s British guys who thought that not letting the poor starve to death would discourage work in the mills. It's a (ugly) moral stance not science.
Thank you for the recommendation! I suppose the big question is: how do we use knowledge like this to help bring about systemic change?
Once I started seeing liberal economists as priests of economic orthodoxy it started to make a lot more sense. They're needed by Capital to add a veneer of false rationalism what is an otherwise irrational state of affairs. Meow.