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Indybay Feature

Studying Economics Today is Like Brainwashing

by Ulrich Thielemann
The blind trust in efficient markets must be replaced and bankers given a new understanding. Profit making is different than profit maximization. Banking should be a public function, not a casino and the real economy and the environment not abandoned. Learning from the financial crisis is a sign of historical consciousness. As war is too important to be left to generals, economics is too important to be left to hucksters and financial innovators! Building community centers (as in Vancouver B.C.) could be a "non-monetary" way to public spirit.
Economics should be a pluralist discipline open and welcoming to alternatives and critical perspectives. Being resigned to driving cabs or working at McD is a declaration of bankruptcy, bitter fruits of a one-dimensional destructive economic theory where capital is granted every freedom and privilege and the short-term is the only term.

Taxation, investment, labor market, trade and distribution policy must be changed to reverse exploding inequality and the new feudalism where speculation is confused with investment, CEOs are called job creators, workers demeaned as cost-factors, risk creators stylized as risk managers and arsonists extolled as firefighters. Closing tax havens would bring $1 trillion in revenues and closing most of the 700 US military bases would make us more secure. Jobs in education cost 1/10 what jobs in capital intensive industries (e.g. chemical dye plants) cost.

In our ambivalent dialectical world (yes and no at once), reality is full of paradox and scandal, exuberance, play and mystery. The time is right for alternative economics, reducing working hours, redefining work, security, strength, health and happiness and soft power!

to read the interview with Swiss economist Ulrich Thielemann published in April 2012, click on

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2013/11/425697.shtml
- See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2013/11/studying-economics-today-brainwashing#sthash.sjPIIjzC.dpuf
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