| 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. |
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).