[crdoconnor]

It's not exactly a conspiracy, stuff like this happens in the open: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/koch-brothers-...

I'd characterize this behavior as "rational actors (economists) in a dysfunctional environment responding rationally to incentives, matching demand with a supply of politically useful economic models for wealthy special interests..."

The ultimate outcome of this is Greenspan telling us "nobody saw the financial crisis coming" because economists in policymaking circles drank their own koolaid and almost entirely assumed away the existence of private debt in their models.

[mentallimits]

you have one example of wealthy donors trying to influence hiring at a university. this does not support the rather crazy theory that the overall direction of research is driven by special interests...

[littlestymaar]

Ever heard about the history of the Swedish National Bank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ?

[crdoconnor]

...and they did the same thing at the University of Utah and Arizona State.

Then there's the matter of where the better paid economist jobs are (think tanks like CATO, AEI, ALEC, Heritage, etc. tasked with formulating pro-corporate policy).

Is your argument that economists do not respond to incentives or that these incentives do not exist?

[notahacker]

The Koch brothers haven't exactly hidden their agenda and willingness to promote it, but it's also pretty obvious that (i) most of the most-criticised standard economic axioms existed long before the Koch brothers started spending (ii) mainstream academic economics (even right-wing mainstream economics) is openly and increasingly disdainful of concepts like gold standards the Kochs have thrown a lot of money at promoting and (iii) there are a lot of other research funding sources from tenured professorships allowing people to write what they want to every right-winger's favourite bogeyman Soros throwing an awful lot of money at heterodox centre-left economics

Probably also (iv) if you're an economist sufficiently motivated by financial incentives to change your entire worldview to suit, you go and work for a bank which pays a lot more than a state university or Koch-bros funded think tank.

So I'd struggle to see incentives being the main story behind popular economic theories

[crdoconnor]

>it's also pretty obvious that (i) most of the most-criticised standard economic axioms existed long before the Koch brothers started spending

Except this isn't about who invented the false premises modern economic thought is based upon, it's about who perpetuates them and why.

>mainstream academic economics (even right-wing mainstream economics) is openly and increasingly disdainful of concepts like gold standards

I wasn't even aware the Koch brothers were pro-gold standard. It isn't mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Ko...

A central part of their agenda it is not.

>every right-winger's favourite bogeyman Soros throwing an awful lot of money at heterodox centre-left economics

Yes, he set up a think tank with noted "leftists" like Paul Volcker and David Rockefeller.

The front page on their website right now is an article downplaying inequality. Karl Marx would be so proud.

>Probably also (iv) if you're an economist sufficiently motivated by financial incentives to change your entire worldview to suit

I doubt there are many of those. If your worldview is so divergent from the standard corporatist neoliberal worldview that pervades the profession you probably won't even go into it in the first place. I have a couple of friends who bailed for this reason at postgrad level.

Nonetheless Upton Sinclair's adage that it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it is pretty relevant...

Note that one of the most cited & praised economists in this thread (keen) for his (actually) heterodox approach was actually made redundant from his university not that long ago.

>you go and work for a bank which pays a lot more

Obviously. It's a simple jump from state university professor to a trader raking in $1 mil bonuses.

[notahacker]

Seriously, your post would have read a lot better if you'd trimmed it to the Upton Sinclair quote...

> Except this isn't about who invented the false premises modern economic thought is based upon, it's about who perpetuates them and why.

Right wing academics at predominantly state-funded academic institutions have obviously promoted a particular economic worldview for the past century and a half because they want to be made redundant, not because they believe in them? I'm not convinced everybody who doesn't agree with your views on the economy is only in it for the money, especially the most influential economists on the right who became recognised and even died long before the Kochs started spraying money around.

> I wasn't even aware the Koch brothers were pro-gold standard.

That says a lot about how effective they are at influencing economics... The Kochs fund the Mercatus Center, pretty much the only academic economics department that takes gold standards seriously. Their much-favoured CATO institute was founded by Murray Rothbard.

> The front page on their website right now is an article downplaying inequality. Karl Marx would be so proud.

The front page on their website carries articles about elite financial networks running the world, disappearing middle classes and where modern macroeconomics went wrong (and yes, an argument for spending tax dollars on poverty alleviation rather than just looking at inequality stats). Obviously this is all part of the conspiracy to promote mainstream economics and the interests of the rich. And Stiglitz and Volcker both taking funding from the same source is a clear sign that economic thinking is entirely dictated by where the money comes from.

As for Marx, it's lucky that literally no economist has ever written anything complimentary about him, although I suppose if they did it must have been for Russian funding.

> Note that one of the most cited & praised economists in this thread (keen) for his (actually) heterodox approach was actually made redundant from his university not that long ago.

Keen's version of events is that the university shut down the faculty because his neoclassical colleagues weren't popular enough and he took voluntary redundancy rather than be a professor on a business course...

> Obviously. It's a simple jump from state university professor to a trader raking in $1 mil bonuses.

Obviously state university economics departments are full of professors who would sacrifice their beliefs for fast career progression and high salaries who just couldn't find anyone else that would hire an economics grad.

[crdoconnor]

>Right wing academics at predominantly state-funded academic institutions have obviously promoted a particular economic worldview for the past century and a half because they want to be made redundant, not because they believe in them? I'm not convinced everybody who doesn't agree with your views on the economy is only in it for the money

I didn't say they were only in it for the money, but the marginal utility of a career as an economist is higher if you have "the right views", and, over time, people have a tendency to shape their views around what grants them money and career progression. This is pretty typical.

>That says a lot about how effective they are

No, it says that that is not part of their agenda. They have never spoken out on it. Only one of the think tanks they fund holds this view.

Their core agenda appears to revolve (among other things) around deregulation. At this, they have been very successful.

>The front page on their website carries articles about elite financial networks running the world

Yeah, elites like trashing one another. Whodathunkit?

>Obviously this is all part of the conspiracy to promote mainstream economics and the interests of the rich.

I suppose billionaires funding an elaborate game of misdirection over wealth inequality could qualify as that, yes. It's curious that you'd characterize this as the left asserting themselves.

>As for Marx, it's lucky that literally no economist has ever written anything complimentary about him

Non sequitur?

>Obviously state university economics departments are full of professors who would sacrifice their beliefs for fast career progression and high salaries

You tend to exit the profession and do something else if your beliefs are too discordant (like my friends did).