One of my colleagues is married to an economics professor and he told me recently that most economics departments are still dominated by Milton Freedman-type economics theory. Every other department has been influenced by broader philosophical trends, but for some reason, the economics field has continued to be quite conservative. With that in mind, I am glad to see that Soros has decided to fund a new economics institute. It isn't that Freedman was completely wrong about everything, or that Keynes was completely right. But our thinking about economics has been too narrowly accepting of free-market ideology, and as a result, we have entire populations (and one political party) that believes that free-market economics is magical while government regulation and intervention is always wrong. This last 20 year period should make us rethink that, but so far, we have continued with many of the same assumptions.
Time to rethink a little.
4 comments:
Interesting. I've mentioned it before, but I commend Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine to anyone curious about the influence of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. Excellent book.
Ideology aside, who in their right mind thinks that when money is involved you don't need rules, regulations and a police force to enforce them?
The problem then becomes deciding what rules to have and who benefits from specific rules. It appears that many of the current rules benefit Wall Street elites and bankers. It also appears that there is a great deal of bipartisan support for these rules, despite promises and talk to the contrary.
I certainly don't think the solution is to have no rules.
Like I said, I am just glad that someone is talking about a regulated economy instead of this free-market fundamentalism.
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