We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, May 16, 2016

Thought control in economics

Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review Blog. 

Thought control is a ubiquitous phenomenon that our ruling masters exercise over every institution in society, but their application of it is particularly strong in a core capitalist curriculum like economics. As Ruccio points out, economics departments of institutions of higher learning usually do not permit any kind of "alternative" views on economics. He cites a recent exception to this rule in which the U. of Glasgow permitted for a time an unorthodox lecturer in their department--but it was not to last.

Ruccio's experience with students and colleagues was particularly disheartening for me:
No matter how many stories I tell them about thought control in economics, students and colleagues in other disciplines simply don’t believe me.
at
Labels: , ,