Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Class Interests as Economic Theory

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

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Class Interests as Economic Theory

Click here to access article by Ismael Hossein-Zaheh from CounterPunch.

The author describes the evolution of capitalism from its revolutionary roots when the teaching of economics was regarded as a helpful understanding of the class nature of capitalism and the labor theory of value compared to today's capitalism in which owners of economic property have so consolidated their wealth and power that the teaching of economics must be more obfuscatory by necessity.

...not surprisingly, an increasing number of students who take classes and/or major in economics are complaining about the abstract and irrelevant nature of the discipline. For example, a group of French graduate students in economics recently wrote an open letter, akin to a manifesto, critical of their academic education in economics as “autistic” and “pathologically distant from the problems of real markets and real people”.