Message-ID: <002801bdf7d3$b9d13e60$6474fea9@jay98> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:35:34 -1000 From: Jay Hanson <mailto:j@QMAIL.COM> Subject: Join our lynch-mob today! To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
(Please repost this message to relevant mailing lists.)My new, moderated "JunkEconomics" list is up and running. We have about 160 members so far, and about 10 messages a day.
PURPOSE OF THIS LIST This is an "action" list. The purpose of this list is to start a grass-roots movement to discredit the court astrologers -- the official apologists of the ruling class -- the economists. We intend to do this by supplying activists and journalists with the tools to hold economists up to public ridicule.
NEED Our present "economized" political system is rushing full speed into the brick wall known as LIMITS TO GROWTH (LTG). LTG assumes many forms: depletion of nonrenewable resources, pollution and perturbation of natural systems, and simply reaching a level of complexity that is too great for our energy base to sustain.
AMERICAN POLITICS Democracy is "government by popularity contest", and as such, requires nothing of its leaders other than "popularity". We elect people to office because "like them" -- not because they have any specific ability to lead or solve problems.
Democracy in America is in even more pathetic because elections are based on money, and whomever who spends the most money usually wins: one dollar, one vote. Thus, elected officials are simply the "most liked" by the moneyed-class.
Obviously, a government of the "most liked" by those who "profit most from business as usual" can not possibly avoid a headlong crash into LTG. Indeed, I believe that all global social systems will be in chaos in less than ten years -- perhaps much less (tomorrow?) -- and nothing can be done to avoid it.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY Political reformers usually focus on the election process itself and miss a very important (perhaps THE most important) aspect of policy: advisors. Who are the president’s top advisors? Are they scientists and engineers, or are they astrologers and entertainers? If you don’t know, then you haven’t been following the news:
"Not long ago, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers were being compared to Douglas MacArthur, the general who reshaped Japan after World War II. Under their leadership, Americans were remaking Asia's dysfunctional crony capitalism -- with its close links between government, corporations, banks and in some cases, ruling families -- in America's free-market image." [WSJ, 9/24/98]
LEVERAGE When the shit hits the fan, everyone is going to be looking for someone to blame -- lynch-mobs will search the streets looking for victims (e.g., the Rodney King riot). All we need to do is point the mob in the right direction. Everyone who is not an economist will be so relieved to be spared that they will join the lynch-mob.
WHY ECONOMISTS? It is important to understand that we are not targeting economists because the are somehow evil, bad, or stupid. To the contrary, there are many brilliant economists in the world today who are working hard to solve our social problems (e.g., the entire ecol-econ genre). The problem lies in the economist’s world-view. Economists see our life-support system as a subsystem of the economic system rather than the other way around. Think of it as an incurable genetic defect.
With few exceptions (e.g., Boulding, Daly, Georgescu-Roegen, a few others), ALL economists call for more economic growth in some form or another: so called "sustainable growth". Simply put, endless economic growth is physically impossible and can only lead to universal ruin. In other words, economists-as-a-class must be rejected because they are incurably wrong -- no matter how well intended -- no matter how many "epicycles" they hang on their theories.
ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE Our objective is to change the nature of the decisions coming out of world capitals by changing the nature of top advisors. We aim to accomplish this by discrediting economists over the next few years to the point where elected leaders would be embarrassed to admit they asked an economist for advice.
RULES OF THE LIST A prerequisite to submissions to this list is the understanding that limits to growth do exist, and that we are now beginning to feel them. The focus of this particular list, as defined by the purpose message, is fairly narrow. I am going to moderate this list to keep discussions in the ballpark. We will not debate the "limits" issue -- nor will we debate politics -- it’s about economics and economists.
To view the archives: http://www.onelist.com/arcindex.cgi?listname=JunkEconomics To subscribe: http://onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/JunkEconomics
Jay