ECONOMICS IS POLITICS: October 2013

Lincoln Cathedral

This may sound really strange but every time I hear something along the lines of: "Lincoln Cathedral needs 10 million pounds to survive", my thought process is as follows:

They need that money to pay someone to repair the Cathedral. Agreed.

Someone like a construction company or something like that. Agreed?

Following my logic? Tell me any flaws in my logic please.

Right. So the construction company are probably quite rich.

So I do think - and please forgive me for this naïve simplicity - couldn't the building firm repair Lincoln Cathedral er... for free.. for nothing?

I know this is heresy in the religion of economics but there you go.

You may say "Well the construction company need the money to buy the bricks to repair Lincoln Cathedral."
Fair enough.

But can't they get at least some bricks for free? gratis? It's Lincoln Cathedral FFS - for goodness sake!

:)

Discuss.

And another thing was - why should it actually matter if the "economy" - whatever that is - doesn't "grow"?

Does it matter?

-----

I secretly suspect economics is a load of bollocks - and I am thinking of working this out a bit more......

"Economics: The Science of Lies".

I recently read an excellent book called: "Psychiatry: The Science of Lies".

I am waiting for someone to write: "Economics: The Science of Lies".

This book is potentially a very long one. :)

There is no such as an "economy".

There is no such thing as an economy.

If Thatcher can say "There is no such thing as a society" then I can say "There is no such thing as an economy", which may sound equally ridiculous. I think it is less ridiculous.

There is no such thing as an economy. There cannot be an economy where an economy is defined as "the total value of the goods and services in a society", since this is defined by humans and cannot have an objective definition in this case.

On the BBC or in a newspaper "economy" usually means "the total value of the goods and services in a political state". I assume that's what they mean anyway. Like when they say "the economy grew by 2% this year". Look up "economy" elsewhere and you'll find other definitions. Interesting.

The "total value of the goods and services in a society" is only ever an opinion. In my opinion, I wouldn't give you a carrot for the goods and services contained in..er..wherever... let's say Watford Gap Service Station on the M1. Someone else might say they were worth a fiver. Someone else a tenner. :) Someone else might say two carrots... etc.

Also this assumes we can agree on what constitutes a "good" or a "service" ... Well you may say anything that has a cash value... Well, anything can have a cash value if you pay cash for it....

I work in a second hand bookshop and I recently found a heap of books on economics, including a few dictionaries of economics. I looked up "economy" in the glossary/dictionary of each book and almost every one had a different definition.
The Victorians maybe had it right when they tended to call it "Political Economy" like in "The Importance of Being Earnest".

There cannot really be economic laws. Since at any time humans could act in any way.

Prices and demand are essentially created by humans and can be changed at any time by humans. Humans could refuse to buy or sell anything at all at any time. Hence strictly speaking there can be no economic laws.... Economics is Politics.

-------

The term "society" obviously refers - apart from anything else - to a concept, as does the term "mind"....
The concept of a society is probably a valid concept.

-------

The use of the term "economy" to refer to a "system" is still obviously very vague.

-------------------------
Another point about this is that it is probably impossible to disbelieve in (the existence of ) "society" and yet at the same time to believe in (the existence of) an "economy"; this impossible position would seem to be the position of some on the political right.
If you disbelieve in "society", then surely a fortiori you must disbelieve in an "economy".
?
.....

Economics need radical re-assessment.
Try here for some of it:

www.neweconomics.org

"PIGS" (Economics) Disambiguation!

If "PIGS" is not a racist acronym - and it clearly is! - why wasn't "GIPS" chosen?

Same letters - same racism!.....

One could be forgiven for thinking that -
"Economics is politics and politics is racism."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)

...........

Alexander Rosenberg.

There is at least ONE other Filosofa to be sceptical about "Economics"....

ID EST:) -

Alexander Rosenberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rosenberg

"Economics Always Devolves Into Sociology."

"Economy"

If you use the word "ECONOMY" as a CONCRETE noun - STOP! and try and think of EXACTLY what you denote by the term!

For most of its existence the word "ECONOMY" was an ABSTRACT noun. Like "bravery", "perseverance" or "panache"....

If you use expressions like "a fairer economy", "at the centre of the economy", "the economy was squeezed", "the economy was boosted"......STOP! and THINK of EXACTLY what you denote by the term "ECONOMY" in those expressions!...

If you think about it you may often see it means very little......

Doing this little exercise may hopefully help you in your thinking about the whole question.....

--------------------

Further homework :) could include thinking of what term one would employ to replace the term "economy" in one's own discourse....

Also very revealing! Suggestions I came up with included "distributive/distribution system" or "profit(-making) system........

Economics and Value.

In a fundamental sense, economics is about wealth and value.

Wealth - apart from simply physical objects - can sometimes mean anything that we value.

We can give value to anything - concepts, people, places and of course things including money.
Money also has value as exchange value.

So in a sense economics could be something like "the scientific study of wealth and value".
It is in this sense philosophy - since what has value - and what we mean by value - is a branch of philosophy.
It is possibly related to Ethics - which is the study of what is a good or valuable life (and conduct).

Ethiconomics?
......

Milton Friedman was not an economist. He was a Propagandist!

“Labour Theory of Value”?

Some incomplete ramblings.

“Labour Theory of Value”:

"The proposition that goods have their value by virtue of the labour, or labour power, that has gone into producing them."

?

(Part of) my questioning of this theory (if I understand it correctly) is (ridiculously) simple:

Ultimately the (exchange) value of an item – the only value an item can have in conventional economics is surely exchange value? – is simply what someone pays someone else – who happens to “possess” it – (and “Property is theft” anyway) - for it.
(Property MUST be theft - because LOGICALLY NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO POSSESS ANYTHING.)
In terms of exchange value, exchange value is simply arbitrary because someone could give the object to someone else for nothing even if they could charge and be paid 10 million pounds for the same object.
Therefore the exchange value of an object is arbitrary.
Someone could refuse to BUY or SELL anything at ANY TIME.
.....
Please tell me what you think of this.....

There are other kinds of VALUE other than exchange value....

En revanche, low wages in the plundered world = massive profits for bussiness + cheap and plentiful (and unneeded) goods for the plundering world.

This may all sound simplistic.
I must say that Marx's theories themselves are also capable of being called simplistic, especially in their totalising tendency with regard, for example, to the LTV and his simplistic insistence that Labour creates all value....

To be continued.....

"Eco-"- "Study of the House". "Management of the House".

An irony is that "Eco - logy" and "Eco - nomics", activities which have come to seem in some ways diammetrically opposed, both etymologically share the same Greek root - "ECO"-"oikos".

They are certainly comprised of very different subject matter when one studies them!.......

Both come from a word meaning "house" - Greek - oikos, "house".
....

One means
"Study of the House" (Ecology)
the other means
"Rules (or customs) of the House" (Economics).
.........

Interestingly enough this makes a rather (poetic) good point -

Studying the house can only really be objective.

Whereas giving rules to the house - or managing the house - cannot really be objective and is really only determined by humans and moreover rules of the house are always........... politics - surely!
Managing the house is an activity as well.....

Economics is politics.

..................

Ecco qua!

The man who came down from the mountain and said......

More from the man who came down from the mountain and said:

"ECONOMICS IS BULLSHIT."

is to be found here:

http://healthvsmedicine.blogspot.com/2008/05/we-interrupt-this-blog-for-brief-rant.html

There IS scope for a book delineating the fantastical meandering rubbish that has constituted economics.

It would perhaps have to have a slight comedic slant.

---------------------

KICK IT OVER!

https://www.adbusters.org/files/downloads/jpgs/adb_poster_manifesto.jpg

The Greatest Economist of All Time?....

Who was the greatest economist of all time?.....

J.(o).K.(e) Galbraith?...
John Maynard "Wine Gums" Keynes?....
...................
or is it......

The Stand Up Economist?

--------------

http://www.standupeconomist.com/

---------------------------------

I have a soft spot for Noreena Hertz personally.
Who is also a campaigner for social justice!

www.noreena.com www.noreena.com

She writes with great perspicacity on the contemporary scene....

There are lots of other Economists I'd like to fanfare.....
I will add them later.

Is there such a thing as Feminist economics?....

After all - it has been a male dominated discipline in what was a male-dominated world!......

Only one woman has ever won the Nobel for Economics.

I personally don't think there should be a "Nobel Prize for Economics" at all!

....as I explain here!

......

If "Western Civilisation" exists....

If "Western Civilization" exists - and it probably doesn't - then it is in origin Greek.

And what are we doing to Greece at the moment? Destroying it for no reason!

In the name of the pseudo-science of "Economics" - which is a Greek word meaning "Household Management".

-----------------------------------------

There is a series in The Guardian at the moment about the ancient world - also there is a new E.B.C. series about the Greeks.

I wonder if they will ever point out and recognise and accept that what became England was part of the ancient world, in the sense that it was a part of the Graeco-Roman civilisation for a few hundred years whilst that civilisation existed.

We live in hope!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEPTIMUS SEVERUS (145 CE - 211 CE) - Roman Emperor
- Born LEPTIS MAGNA / Libya, Died EBORACUM / York, England.

I wonder if he ever stopped for a drink in DUROLITUM?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Talking of Greek.....

the designation- MICROeconomics and MACROeconomics.... is rather odd.....

Wikidefinition of "An Economy"

I see they have changed the definition of an "economy" on wikipedia!

Very interesting.

Here is the new wikidefinition:
"An economy is the ways in which people use their environment to meet their material needs."

I feel quite vindicated by this change in definition.

I feel vindicated because if you really think about this definition you will realise there is no such thing as "an economy."

Even if this definition were accepted it can plainly be seen from it that economics is politics - id est "the ways in which people use the environment to meet their needs" is surely determined entirely by politics.

Tell me if I am wrong.

"Economics is bullshit"

I just googled "Economics is bullshit" and found this.

http://healthvsmedicine.blogspot.com/2008/06/economics-is-bullshit-cont.html

Interesting.

-----

Interesting research technique as well.
If you think "xyz" then just google it - in inverted commas of course - and see what you get ! :)

-----

BTW Economics IS bullshit.......

"The British Museum" on Greek "Household Management"!

"The Greeks "did" economics, practically speaking, but they did not theorise it as we do."

[Source - "The Ancient World: Greece: Day 2" Second Booklet in Grauniad series about Ancient World - provided by "Brutish Museum."]

( NOTA BENE : The FACT that "Economics" is a Greek word is not acknowledged!! )

THE EXACT OPPOSITE IS SO OBVIOUSLY THE CASE. :)

That is to say - the Greeks theorized "Economics" (including giving it is name) - and did NOT "practically DO" "Economics" as we do - mainly because it does not exist. :)

.................

:)

The Ancient Greeks were ahead of us in so many ways. As are the modern Greeks.

.................

"Neither a lender nor a borrower be."

"Neither a lender nor a borrower be." Shakespeare.

What's the bigger crime, robbing a bank or opening one?

"What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?"
Berthold Brecht.

----

So I think I've figured this thing out.

They are lending out lots and lots of money that they don't have
to people that can't pay it back.

Banks are needed to loan out money to people. Maybe.

But it needs a bit of regulation surely.

Eco-Gnome-Ics!......

Maybe "Economics" is REALLY about Gnomes --- ECO-GNOME-ICS!!! :) You may scoff!!!

But have you ever seen ANYONE more like a Gnome than the Governor of the Bank of England - Sir Mervyn King??

And - what's more - he is also a MAGICAL BEING who can INVENT money!!! I wish I could!!! :)

Chief Gnome "MERVYN KING" leads the way:

I have a lot of sympathy for "The Economy"......

At the moment I feel a great deal of sympathy for "The Economy" and am taking it easy.

For Ruth Lea

http://kickitover.org/

For Ruth Lea

with love from

The Sofa.

:)

---------------

To be honest even adbusters don't go far enough in the sense that even they talk about "economies" and "economic growth."

Not only do I not believe these things are important - I simply believe that they mean NOTHING WHATSOVER, DO NOT EXIST and/or simply CANNOT be defined.

I repeat. It is not only that I think valuing these things ("economies" and "economic growth") is immoral and COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT - which I do - it is ALSO that I simply believe - and I believe this with great confidence - that they have no meaning in ANY scientific sense.

I ardently urge people to prove me wrong. :)