economics
ECONOMICS – THE “DISMAL SCIENCE” (THE DISHONEST SCIENCE?)
This quote is from the book The Globalisation of Poverty and The New World Order, by Michael Chossudovsky, published by Global Outlook, 2nd edition, 2003, page 27:- “The dominant economic discourse has also reinforced its hold on academic - - - - institutions - - - CRITICAL ANALYSIS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED - - - THE DOMINANT ECONOMIC DOGMA ADMITS NEITHER DISSENT NOR DISCUSSION of its main theoretical paradigm.” (My capitals.)
This quote is from the book Capital in the Twenty First Century, by Thomas Piketty (Professor at The Paris School of Economics), published by The Belknapp Press of Harvard University Press, 2014, page 32:- “The discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for - - - - purely theoretical AND OFTEN HIGHLY IDEOLOGICAL SPECULATION.” (My capitals and highlighting.)
This quote is from The New Yorker, January 6th, 2020, pages 32 to 41. Article – Embarrassment of Riches, by Sheelah Kolhatkar:- “The DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS – the idea which HAS DRIVEN US POLICY DECISIONS for several decades, and has LARGELY BEEN DEBUNKED - - - - Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton, told me – “We live in a world where supply-side economics, WHICH WAS ALWAYS A FRAUD, became a religion.” (My capitals and highlighting.)
This quote is from the book 21 Things They Don’t tell You About Capitalism, by Ha-Joon Chang (Reader in The Political Economy of Development at Cambridge University), published by Penguin Books, 2011, pages 247 to 248:- “Economists played an important role in creating the conditions of the 2008 crisis - - - the 1982 Third World debt crisis - - - by providing THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATIONS - - - - they advanced THEORIES THAT JUSTIFIED THE POLICIES THAT LED TO SLOWER GROWTH, higher inequality, heightened job insecurity, and more frequent financial crises - - - made people’s lives more unstable. - - - ECONOMICS, as it has been practised in the last three decades HAS BEEN POSITIVELY HARMFUL FOR MOST PEOPLE.” (My capitals.)
My comment:- We have already seen, from the quotes in this book, that scientific opinions can be “bought”, that scientists are willing to lie for money, in the form of funding, “consultancy” fees, “backhanders”, bribes – or whatever. Economists are (or purport to be) “scientists” (Economics is known as “The Dismal Science”). They are usually academics, dependent on “funding” to carry out their “research”. Question:- Who supplies this “funding” – rich people or poor people? On the basis that rich people supply the “funding”, then the results of the “research” will tend to favour economic policies which benefit the rich people – or that “funding”/bribe money will be withdrawn. The conclusions and opinions disseminated by economists can have a seriously adverse effect on the lives of millions of people.