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Sunday, February 28, 2010 5:00pm ET, over at FDL.
Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal
Chat with Moshe Adler about his new book, hosted by Max Fraad Wolff.
In this brilliant eye opener, Moshe Adler shows how more than a century ago the man-made concepts of economics were transformed from egalitarian concern with the welfare of everyone into analytical tools biased in favor of the rich. With clarity, and in language any educated person can grasp, Adler shows how economics largely abandoned concern with how economic efficiency is affected by distribution of resources and equality in favor of precepts that favor concentration of wealth and income.
—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Free Lunch and Perfectly LegalWhy do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the "science" of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny.
Filled with lively examples–from food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry Summers–Economics for the Rest of Us shows how today’s dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they’re not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinking–and why it is dead wrong–Economics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system.
Moshe Adler teaches economics at Columbia University and at the Center for Labor Studies at Empire State College. His articles and editorials have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Counterpunch, as well as in the most prestigious academic journals. He lives in New York City. (Amazon.com)
1 Comment
Economists were taken to be people who could tell us how to make all our systems better, and everything work for everyone.
Well we have had many years and decades of being advised by economists, and most everything is turning to shit.
Even the Banks and Wall Street had many economists on the payroll and in their pockets, and it didn’t stop any of the booms, busts, and crisis’s from happening.
The rich get richer because they have money and can make things work for them, the poor get poorer because they can’t make enough money to make it work for them.
So the economists never were telling us anthing, and the enevitable happened like it always does.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the economists are paid for doing nothing, telling us nothing important, and not being of much good.
Yet everybody listens to them and thinks they know what they are talking about.
The truth and the proof in the worthyness of economists, is the shape of ours and the worlds economies.
If these people were worth anything the world and us would have no economic problems, because these people would have told us how to avoid the pitfalls and fix our problems. THEY HAVE DONE NONE OF THIS.