If You Look Behind Neoliberal Economists, You’ll Discover the Rich: How Economic Theories Serve Big Business

Lambert here: I’m hoisting this one paragraph:

Quote :: But this leads to the main paradox of neoliberalism. Its economic system needs a strong state, even at the expense of constraining democracy, to guarantee property rights and the working of the free market, while actively maintaining the rule of neoliberal social philosophy. At the same time some of its proponents tend to dismiss strong states (Mirowski, 2013). In fact, laissez faire was the last thing neoliberals wanted to achieve. This paradoxical stance towards the state led Milton Friedman, the policy entrepreneur to become an advisor of the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet to transform Chile into a policy playground.

If there should be “markets in everything,” it follows there should be markets in selling off bits of the state. That works until it doesn’t, as (I would argue) the Tory heirs of Maggie Thatcher are discovering.

Social classes have always embraced ideas and social philosophies. Not only to understand and interpret the real world, but most importantly to change it to their benefit. These theories (primarily in social science) have become beweaponed ideas called ideologies, as they are used to influence rather than to understand the human universe. Of course the two are related: the nature of our understanding, i.e. what we consider important and what we leave out from our theoretical framework, is called modelling.

But what if modeling is just an euphemism for modern ideologies? Think of the efforts of neoclassical macroeconomics – for instance, DSGE models – to find the philosophical notion of equilibrium, irrespective of the non-equilibrium nature of the real world, let alone income inequalities. (But also think of Mannheim’s paradox that the critique of an ideology – like this article – is also ideological.)

The great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek didn’t favor mathematical modeling, but he had clear philosophical models in his head. One of his most famous statements is related to the slippery road to dictatorships: if you introduce a little bit of state involvement in the economy, you have already stepped on this messy road to serfdom. The main intention of this model was to call for action and to raise awareness against the increasing governments in an era when the battle between the West and the East hadn’t yet been decided.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/look-behind-neoliberal-economists-youll-discover-rich-economic-theories-serve-big-business.html

If You Look Behind Neoliberal Economists, You’ll Discover the Rich: How Economic Theories Serve Big Business

If You Look Behind Neoliberal Economists, You’ll Discover the Rich: How Economic Theories Serve Big Business

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