Fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.
* Not to mention most of science while we're at it.
This struck me now:
misrepresents [...] the theoretical results of economics
Are you saying that anyone who studies theoretical economics should be able to reach the conclusion that the pursued and presented model is faulty? If so, what are people learning instead at BA business schools?
Every ruling economic elite create a market for a special kind of bullshit. A demand for Bullshit that provides a theoretical/theological/"scientific" framework to justify-- nay, ORDAIN-- predation. Theirs.
Why? lots of possible reasons- one might be the "shaving mirror effect" -- the need to be able to stuff a "structural adjustment loan" down the throat of some Latin American nation in difficulty, then pluck it clean of value, leaving economic ruin and the wreckage of lives--and still be able to shave without being tempted to cut deep. A lifetime of tame media and growing "better adjusted" in the economic world probably makes that unlikely--
There will emerge a range of bullshit products, targeted at different consumers depending on a lot of things--the relative ability (or not)to analyze and ask good questions, intellectual level, etc. etc --and on the degree to which the buyer has become so "expert" at the bullshit that he or she can no longer think outside the bovine litter box.
Lots of examples spring to mind--
What's the market for Friedman? Giant.But--shaky?
For Leo Strauss? Jeez. We sure know those guys.
Greenspawn? Aha. Greenspawn brings up another market- the goat bazaar. It's the place where discarded, discredited bullshiteers go to be sold to be roasted for the failure of policy based on bullshit..
Does all this sound a lot like Economics?
Mig, it'll never make sense to you, even though some of the bullshiteers are very, very good--
That's a compliment. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
Are we all going to sit here handing it off between disciplines so we don't take the blame for that one. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Does Strauss sounds like philosophy?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm
Disastrous mistake #1: Thinking that to label something is to understand it. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
I think it would be interesting to build a sane, bottom-up economics that has some connection to the real world and isn't just an excuse for ten different kinds of pathological and predatory empire building.
That would be a worthwhile thing. But it wouldn't look like any of the nonsense that's around at the moment.
price (P) = operating cost + premium (Pr) | Pr is a quantified differential defined as preference (mark to model or mark to market (S/D)). That premium is commonly accepted by capitalist buyers and sellers alike as justifiable profit ("wealth," "value added" to raw goods, finacial surplus), though terms underlying the expression (Pr) are NOT commonly comprehended as transparent properties of the transaction.
More common is the representation Pr = p - c, which is irrational, ceteris paribus.
The theoretical basis of an 'operating cost' function is financial compensation paid to acquire (to master) automated or animated production technolgoies which also limit acquisition of some raw material, further processed or derived for sale in a proprietary commodity form.
It is one thing to calculate fungible labor, i.e. ownership rights or slave production ->operating expense. It is another function altogether to negotiate a market clearing wage for labor and commodity substitutution. In such an exchange environment that dilutes principles of ownership, mastery of state regulation is desirable and economical determinant of premium. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
