The irrationality comes from the fact that it's suicidally self-defeating in the medium to long term.
It's lemming politics, and no cleverer than that. The rentiers believe they're masters of the universe, but in reality they're just stupid animals.
Any rational reinvention has to include at least some evidence of strategy and rational planning rooted in higher brain function.
Economics, of necessity, deals with wealth, money and banks. Economists, of necessity, learn that they must respect the prejudices and the interests of the wealthy if they are to find wide employment for their educational qualifications in existing societies. And in our debased society, respect and acclaim follows wealth and worldly success. Combined, these factors are powerful forces for stasis in economic thought. The effectiveness and explanatory power of an economic system only comes to be relevant so long as it also favors stasis of existing wealth distribution. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Economics, of necessity, deals with wealth, money and banks. Economists, of necessity, learn that they must respect the prejudices and the interests of the wealthy if they are to find wide employment for their educational qualifications in existing societies. And in our debased society, respect and acclaim follows wealth and worldly success. Combined, these factors are powerful forces for stasis in economic thought. The effectiveness and explanatory power of an economic system only comes to be relevant so long as it also favors stasis of existing wealth distribution.
But since banks are not in fact necessary for money generation (other than money as debt), and wealth need not in fact be a claim over wealth issued by a bank, then a new Economics may perhaps be developed to explain an emergent post-Finance Capital economics. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Unfortunately, the profession of economics has been notably disinclined to even consider the significant advances we have made in the human sciences since Smith's time.
We would do well to pick up where JS Mill left off around 1870... The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler
Actually it's a perfectly effective construct for keeping the rentier class in power with the support of an expensive warrior class.
Well, as the guy said, you can resist an invading army, but you can't resist an idea. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
