First and foremost, and in reference to your OP on zero-sum decision making, notice that all problems involving wealth——its creation, its transfer, its consumption——are not economic problems, but rather problems of political economy. The biggest propaganda success of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the sanitizing of political economy into separate (and separated) disciplines called economics and politics.
Once you've done that, notice all the outlets and efforts at maintaining this separation and its continuance, including ones you cited in the OP (reality TV pops right out).
A great example for me was the creation of the so-called "Nobel" Prize for Economics in 1968, which Alfred Nobel never endowed and which his descendants decry as propaganda… which it totally is.
Instead of being decided by other economists, the prize is ultimately issued by bankers to "economic" (again, notice the removal of the political) thinkers whose ideas help bankers maintain their aloof position above politics, thus giving them the ability to undermine political decision making.
Think here about Varoufakis getting shut down by EU bankers. He was right, they were wrong; it was indeed "fiscal waterboarding." (I wrote about years ago.) Later, Picketty pointed out that Greece and many other forgave German reparation debt in 1960, adding further irony to the ECB's current position, largely dictated, as it is, by Deutchebank officials.
I could totally go on, but I would point you to heterodox thinkers on political economy like Mark Blyth and Steve Keen for better insight.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-04-17 12:36 am (UTC)First and foremost, and in reference to your OP on zero-sum decision making, notice that all problems involving wealth——its creation, its transfer, its consumption——are not economic problems, but rather problems of political economy. The biggest propaganda success of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the sanitizing of political economy into separate (and separated) disciplines called economics and politics.
Once you've done that, notice all the outlets and efforts at maintaining this separation and its continuance, including ones you cited in the OP (reality TV pops right out).
A great example for me was the creation of the so-called "Nobel" Prize for Economics in 1968, which Alfred Nobel never endowed and which his descendants decry as propaganda… which it totally is.
Instead of being decided by other economists, the prize is ultimately issued by bankers to "economic" (again, notice the removal of the political) thinkers whose ideas help bankers maintain their aloof position above politics, thus giving them the ability to undermine political decision making.
Think here about Varoufakis getting shut down by EU bankers. He was right, they were wrong; it was indeed "fiscal waterboarding." (I wrote about years ago.) Later, Picketty pointed out that Greece and many other forgave German reparation debt in 1960, adding further irony to the ECB's current position, largely dictated, as it is, by Deutchebank officials.
I could totally go on, but I would point you to heterodox thinkers on political economy like Mark Blyth and Steve Keen for better insight.
Edited to repair hypertext.