Reformist Economics

from Peter Radford

“… the act of judgement that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world. The decision to reject one paradigm is always the decision to accept another, and the judgement leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other.” – Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

I will break my recent silence – I am still burrowing down into the issue of inequality – to make a comment on the skepticism I see concerning the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

It is justified.

Let’s think about this a moment.

If we are to set up an institute to support change, provoke discussion, and otherwise meddle about with the established way of thinking, and thus to earn the moniker of “newness”, we ought not to pack our agendas with a steady stream of establishment figures. That is not the way to revolution. It might, however, be the way to raise esteem and thus get the institution media attention.

Is INET nothing but a Trojan horse of the financial oligarchy?

from Lars Syll

So far, the history and the actions of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, founded by George Soros and other members of the financial establishment, are compatible with the hypothesis that it might be a Trojan horse of the financial oligarchy, meant to control the movement for reform of economics. However, despite some limited evidence to the contrary, it is also still compatible with the counter-hypothesis that it is a bona fide effort to push such reform to the benefit of society at large. A restrictive policy of supporting independent initiatives with the same stated goals, and a recent tendency toward the promotion of the less radical reformist ideas make it opportune to monitor the activities of INET with an open but skeptical mind.

Norbert Häring

Yours truly can’t but concur. And obviously there are others also having doubts about INET:

George Soros‘ INET: An institute to improve the world or a Trojan horse of the financial oligarchy?

from Norbert Haering

Let’s assume that there is a financial oligarchy which exerts strong political influence due to the vast amounts of money it controls. Let’s further assume that this financial oligarchy has succeeded in having financial markets deregulated and that this has enabled the financial industry to expand their business massively. Then, in some near or far future, their artfully constructed financial edifice breaks down, because it cannot be hidden any more that the accumulated claims cannot be serviced by the real economy That might be due, for example, to millions of people having bought overly expensive houses on credit without having the income necessary to service this debt. This is the kind of situation we are interested in.

If such a situation occurs, the leading figures of that financial oligarchy might recall that there has been a financial crisis in the 1930s of similar origin, and that during and after this crisis, laws were passed which broke the power of the financial oligarchy and taxed their profits steeply. They might remember that it took their forbearers decades to reestablish the favorable state of the late 1920s, with deregulated finance and very low taxes on incomes and estates, even huge ones.

The financial oligarchy might also recollect that economics is their most important ally in shaping public opinion and policies in their favor. To prevent a loss of power as it happened hence, they might want to make sure first that economics will not challenge the notion of leaving financial markets mostly to themselves and will continue to downplay the role of money and the power of the financial oligarchy, and of power in general.