- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 996
The Poets’ Guide to Economics could not have been more tailored to capture the eye and the imagination of an economist like me, with a different perspective, idea and vision on economics.
“Economics matter. Bad policies, based on mistaken theories, led to an economic collapse at the end of the 1920s. This set the scene for world-wide conflict in the 1930s. Will today’s economists make a better fist of the 2020s? The years of Keynesian plenty are long gone. Economics seems to be in trouble- too entrenched to be stormed from outside, too narrow to cope on its own. A spate of recent books suggest that prominent economists are worried.In Good Economics for Hard Times (2019), the Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee call for a change of course and conclude:
Economics is too important to be left to economists.
Or, as Robert Skidelsky puts it In What’s Wrong with Economics (2020):
The task is no less than to reclaim economics for humanities.
If Coleridge, Shelley, Scott and the others are looking down from Parnassus they would surely agree, and beg us to pay attention”.- John Ramsden in his introduction to The Poets’ Guide to Economics
Without humanity, economics is a house of cards built on shifting sands.
- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 811
Neoliberal economics and the world on the edge of the abyss, serfdom, and servitude
Neoliberalism has denigrated humanity and has destroyed human creativity and potential.
Neoliberal economics is nothing but a false and pernicious ideology that has poisoned our hearts and minds.
This ideology has distorted economics- once upon a time, a subject of beauty, elegance and wisdom- and thus, consequently, economics has been complicit in extraordinarily harmful, amoral, and destructive decisions. A toxic, venomous mix of economics and ideology threw open the door for the brutal reign of neoliberalism, the ideology against humanity.
Lies, damned lies, neoliberal economics and the mumbo jumbo economists
“The fatal flaw of neoliberalism: it's bad economics”-Dani Rodrik
"The purpose of studying economics is to learn how to avoid being deceived by the economists."-Joan Robinson
“Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.”― Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
The Neoliberal Architects of the World's Destruction
World’s Descent into Madness: The Chief Culprits of 'Greed is Good', 'Mammon is King' and to 'Hell with Mother Nature'
Crisis after Crisis: Financial Crisis. Environmental and Ecological Crisis. Biodiversity Crisis. Housing Crisis. Health and Well-being Crisis. Education Crisis. Spiritual and Moral Crisis. Trust and Trusting Crisis. Depression, Anxiety and Loneliness Crisis. Fake, Fake News and Faking Crisis. Reality Crisis. Populism and Fascism Crisis, Brexit and Trumpism Crisis,... -neoliberalism has played its part in them all.
The Big 4 Culprits: Hayek, Friedman, Reagan, and Thatcher.- Photo: Mary Parsons
Neoliberal Economics: A house of ill repute, Built on a shifting sand.
Neoliberalism has led the world to populism, tyranny, and a new age of serfdom and servitude
The Destruction of our World and the lies of Milton Friedman
Neoliberalism has devastated the world and devalued humanity
Neoliberalism and the rise in global loneliness, depression and suicide
For the sake of humanity, our sanity, and the survival of the entire web of life, it is time to say: 'Goodbye, homo economicus.'
This Blog posting’s main message to economics educators and other interested observers is that we need to help facilitate a decisive shift and a revolution in economics, what it is, what it should be and what it is that we teach our students.
The oldest refrain of the Right is that socialism leads to tyranny. Yet, in the last few decades, since the rise of Thatcherism, it’s neoliberalism that’s been leading the world on the road to serfdom and the edge of the abyss.
To shed light on neoliberal economics that has brought us all a very bitter harvest, pushing the world to the edge of the abyss, I can look no further than my own personal and professional journey over 45 years of teaching economics at universities. There you have it.
These are what I have learned from 45 years of teaching economics
- Details
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 748
‘Education of the mind without education of the heart is no education at all.’-Aristotle
Photo credit:The Pictures Quotes Blog
Why kindness is the key to a new economy
The world needs kindness; every person, everywhere, needs kindness. Kindness gives Hope and hope gives us life. Kindness connects us and fuels us. Kindness moves us. Kindness keeps us. Kindness grounds us. Kindness protects us. Kindness anchors us. Kindness is what makes us human.
Can we find space for kindness and empathy in our classrooms, teaching and deliberations, against a backdrop of complexities and challenges, where we have allowed compassion, love and kindness to be viewed as luxuries, rather than necessities of life? Can we nudge people to behave altruistically? Can we build a view of society that is built not from the extremes, not from saints and sinners, but through the everyday kindness of action, by state, by organisations, businesses and the individuals? Can greed be transformed into generosity, selfishness to selflessness, hatred to kindness,...,? Can we alter policies and practices to make the world a kinder place? Can we all come together and in the interest of the common good, begin to imagine a different world, a kinder world?