Economische argumenten en feiten zijn in het huidige tijdsgewricht niet populair. Dat waren ze al nooit als ze niet uitkwamen, betoogt Ryan McMaken.

Many people on the left regard economics as neither a science nor a principled field of study. For them, economics is just a pseudo-science invented as corporate propaganda, and people who push “free-market economics” do so because they are either evil or brainwashed by corporate masters.

Duur: 8:34

Publicatie 7 februari

Het hele artikel dat hierboven wordt uitgesproken vindt u geannoteerd ook hier. Met als inleidende alinea’s:

Among advocates for free-markets, I’m often told that the unconverted will embrace free-markets if only we explain to them “good economics.”

But here’s the problem — many anti-capitalists don’t think economics is a real thing, a real science, or anything other than corporate propaganda. They think it’s something invented by wealthy people to create a fake philosophical justification for why they should be allowed to keep their riches.

In other words, these leftists think that your appeals to “economic science” are just a ruse for pushing an ideology invented to keep poor people poor and powerless.

Economics as Corporate Propaganda

But don’t take my word for it.

In an essay on “corporate propaganda and global capitalism,”1 Sharon Beder explains how the promotion of “neoclassical orthodoxy” by “neoconservative economists” [by which she just means free-market economists] in the past was little more than a propaganda campaign to convince people that their own interests coincide with those of private businesses

Etc.