Economy/Economics

What is explained can be denied but what is felt cannot be forgotten.
— Charles Bowden

By the time we come to the end of this series we will have been swimming in the primordial soup of the seeds for alternative forms of traditional capitalism! As I have long said, there is bad capitalism, the kind we have, and good capitalism, the kind we need

Fringe, adj. not part of the mainstream; unconventional, peripheral. When this definition is applied to the economy it becomes the title of a book, Short Changed: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy, written by Howard Karger, who at the time was a professor of social policy.1 Part 4 is a review of that book.

Notice the “notes” in the title. Part 3 is no textbook. Part 3 is a miniscule “Cliff Notes.” Notice, too, that the title reads “classical” thinking, not “early” thinking. There’s a difference. Since I regard human transactions as the bedrock of any economy and economic system, were I to choose the latter over the former qualifier I would have a lot of ground to cover, namely, that of early humans and their thinking as deduced from artifacts. An impossible task for me.

Capitalism as it is practiced is economically insane, and it is devouring the American dream. So says the author of one of the books I have reviewed.1 Part 2 of this series adapts and adds to that review.

This piece introduces my 10-part series on economic sanity and alternative economic systems.  Never mind that I am not an economist. Instead, please appreciate that I am not an economist.
Neither is Daniel Kahneman an economist, and he won the Nobel Prize for economics. He is a psychologist like me, but a very different psychologist in at least two respects. Firstly, his specialty is cognitive psychology, mine is organizational psychology. Secondly, I will never win a Nobel Prize.

Karl Marx images through his lifetime. Artist unknown.
In 1888, Marx wrote, “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”

The Popular Resistance School will begin on May 1 and will be an eight-week course on how movements grow, build power and succeed as well as examine the role you can play in the movement. Sign up to be part of this school so you can participate in small group discussions about how to build a powerful, transformational movement. REGISTRATION CLOSES MIDNIGHT APRIL 30.

Political and business leaders have refined the art and science of lying about the economy. From their suites, chauffeur-driven limousines, private yachts and jets, they aren’t too concerned about whether the economy works for everyone, except in speeches and elections. As they tuck into their next fine dining experience, they know that it’s easier and more profitable to mummify the paralysis of spectacular inequality.

You ever wonder what a Martian might think if he happened to land near an emergency room? He’d see an ambulance whizzing in and everybody running out to meet it, tearing the doors open, grabbing up the stretcher, scurrying along with it. ‘Why,’ he’d say, ‘what a helpful planet, what kind and helpful creatures.’ He’d never guess we’re not always that way; that we had to, oh, put aside our natural selves to do it. ‘What a helpful race of beings,’ a Martian would say. Don’t you think so?
― Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist, April 2002