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

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Clueless or Just Plain Stupid?

Click here to access article by Peter Radford from Real-World Economics Review Blog

The title of this article refers to the relatively new chairman, Jerome Powell, of the Federal Reserve who expressed surprise at the failure for wages to rise in this period of supposedly low unemployment and corporate tax cuts. Likewise, this mystery affects a lot of Radford's friend in the economics profession. 

He writes that there is no mystery. Those, in the upper-middle class, who work in high places serve their capitalist masters. To do this, they frequently encounter contradictions between capitalist theory and reality. To psychologically handle these contradictions, they must, in order to serve their masters and earn high salaries and numerous perks,  engage in self-deceptions consciously or unconsciously.
... reality has become inconvenient. It contradicts what our elite prefers to believe.

So rather than waste time tearing their hair out over Trump’s manifest ignorance and disregard for democracy, perhaps my friends all ought to be pondering their own role in transferring power to the unelected elite that is currently enriching itself and starving the masses of a prosperous and secure future.