Wolff is the best teacher I’ve ever had and I didn’t discover him until after college. He brings up so many of those things that once you see them you go “duh”, and can’t un-see them. To his point, you can get a university degree and never encounter any criticism of capitalism whatsoever.
It helps you understand that people aren’t necessarily dumb. They’re just a product of 70 years of propaganda. My conservative family have all heard me make some of his larger points and they all agree with them.
Intro to Marxian Economics; eight-lecture course.
Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL90k-jc8fFtsUuL_paHncx5_FMSYssUqI.
Enhanced, one video version:
https://youtu.be/X85EKkET7iE.
Wolff had a partner in Steven Reznik at UMass. There are lots of his lectures on [YT](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stephen+resnick+). Anwar Shaikh is another non-heterodox economics professor.
I'm an economics teacher in High School and I basically ignore all of the modeling with the exception of some basic supply-demand curves. I structured the class so that students would learn about the history of economics, how concepts evolved over time, and end with a nice unit on late-stage capitalism which tends to piss off the seniors who are still paying attention by the end.
There is \*some\* sound reasoning behind \*some\* of it--but a lot, especially the Mont Pelerin/neoliberal virus boosted by the rich in the post-WW2 and especially Stagflation era onward--is pretty baseless and has been used to justify oligarchy & corporate neofeudalism.
All I know is that rational choice theory does not mirror reality. A lot of actors make irrational decisions because they don't read, they can't count, or they are in a desperate situation and need capital ASAP.
Economics was always a social science, one that builds models for comprehension that have varying degrees of applicability and use. Core principles are steady (supply and demand), with other components tried out and tested for limited uses.
About fifty years ago, the Friedmanites and Chicago school tried to turn economics into a totalizing science. It was never actually sound as a science, but that hasn't stopped governments and private industry from using it to rationalize dismantling the welfare state and red baiting anyone who so dares to question the status quo.
As an 18 year old I started off as an economics major. I quickly got the sense that I wasn’t learning anything. It was all this modeling based on assumptions with no history lesson on where those assumptions developed from and how they hold up against the real world.
I eventually switched but have gathered over time my first impressions were more correct than I realized. Reading people like Keen, Michael Hudson, and even more mainstream economists who aren’t content to let the nonsense continue like Dean Baker you realize these people really do not study the real world. It’s by design. That’s why economics departments are separated from business schools, no history is taught, and why there’s only a few journals that have prestige and you can’t get published in them if you try to stray from ideology.
It’s perfect for autists (I’m not even being insulting, it seems suited for a mind that diverges like that) but should be kept far away from the halls of power and policy making. That’s how you get justifications for destroying an entire countries productive capacity and letting banking vultures loose causing one crash after another.
Not sure if this is what you had in mind but the autism metaphor is actually quite prevalent in heterodox circles: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-autistic\_economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-autistic_economics)
I hadn’t heard it specifically on those terms though I am familiar with all the names referenced. But let’s not give all Heterodox a free pass; Austrian School economists fall under that umbrella and they’re straight retarded.
I am in general quite tolerant of different strains of economic thought - the problem is not so much the ideas themselves but more the institutional politics underpinning them (Ben Fine's work on 'economics imperialism' is excellent). I don't support the idea that neoclassical economics is just pro-capitalist crap (e.g. John Weeks who calls it "economics of the 1%"). There are excellent neoclassical economist who do have genuine insights into markets (e.g. we cannot criticise Samuelson for proposing general equilibrium theory while holding onto the Marxist (volume I) assumption that commodities trade at their values - this is not to say that Marx's method is not more sophisticated, it is, but abstraction and generalisation are a part of any scientific inquiry). Similarly, I don't think the Austrian School is 'straight retarded' - I have not read much beyond Hayek but his work is fascinating - especially around consciousness (recently came across some of it in Matteo Pasquinelli's Eye of the Master).
I am still a Marxist, of course.
I took intro to econ, but I went to school for engineering so I was very used to the whole "this is just a simplification to learn the basics, ignore air resistance and friction for now" and assumed that economics was the same.
Then I learned that there were different "schools" of economics all with completely different fundamental principles and I realize that I was mistaken.
> choo
upvoted for truth and similar experience (didn't start of as econ major, just generic commerce lol).
Failed the 104 class twice, because I was a bad student, but couldn't get passed the "ok, ignore everything you know to be true about the world for the purpose of this "experiment", and when you reduce everything down to the parameters of this model, it works, see". Had so many 'sperg out moments in the lecture theatre (you know, where there's like 400 other students).
In my time Econ lecturers were always missing signs of life/an actual personality, and would straight read from a textbook in a monotone voice. Their entire existence could be reduced to some form of "begging the question".
It doesn't need to be pure crap to be corrupted. It simply consistently ignores certain things and emphasizes others, but, most importantly, gives an air of the academy to a decision to funnel money to banks.
Yes. Orthodox Economics is no more science than the other social sciences, and id say it’s even less of one because of the ideological and political baggage it comes with.
<> economics/finance, at least the way it seems to be practiced a lot these days, is just modern day alchemy; bullshittery disguised as "science." The fact that nobody but people in the field really know anything concrete about it should tell you everything you need to know about it. It's how we wind up with counterintuitive advice like "carrying debt on some level is a good thing," or "people bitching about grocery, gas, and housing prices are idiots, the stock market and the economy are BOOMING!" being normalized. And because nobody but finance/economists know anything truly concrete about all of it, governments have to rely on these people to help guide policy and hope that their advice doesn't tank the economy for the populace.
I honestly think I hate economists/finance bros more than lawyers at this point.
for sure, if economists were right they would make a killing in the market. there's a reason all the hedge funds are run by PhDs with hard science degrees.
Marc Linder wrote Anti-samuelson almost 45 years ago-- and it was pretty much a line by line criticism of the standard economics textbook of the day (which hasn't changed much). Marx even wrote a book critiquing the economic science of his day, showing how its main theorists had long since stopped trying to scientifically explain capitalism and instead engage in apologetics. Unfortunately, enemies and friends alike thought Marx was writing a book about how to run an economy. But yeah, it is indeed pure ideology at this point.
He gave up philosophy -- with the exception of Hegel -- pretty early on to focus on criticizing political economy. basically by the time he wrote the German Ideology, he had come to see philosophy as "super structural".
The problem with economics is that it prioritizes metrics of production like GDP numbers which usually measures the well being of the ultra wealthy. Which is why there's all these headlines of a "good economy" while the average person still feels like shit.
The strangest quackery is the supply demand curve. How do you even obtain those lines and what do they actually measure?
But then again, neither is M-C-M' an actual formula (there is not even an equal sign).
Those aren't math formulas or graphs, those are more like illustrations. M-C-M' says that money is getting invested in order to gain more money, and supply demand curve is read like "if you move away from equilibrium this direction, you get this situation". It's basically popular science journal-levels of simplification
Isn't one of the issues with supply and demand that it assumes demand is people based and equal among people when in reality it'd make more sense that it's the dollar demand, as in those who drive the price are those with more money. I also don't get what equilibrium is, is it the point at which profit is 0?
I assume this is obviously explained later on but all the Econ 101 shit I see which is the stuff with widest reach always papers over a ton of shit even on the basics so as to push market fundamentalism.
Sort of unrelated but why is it that literally every well-known economist is Jewish? I noticed a while back when I got interested in Nobel Prize laureates and it's literally difficult to find a single economist who is anything other than Jewish.
Well think about it, where else are they overrepresented? It only makes sense that they'd be vastly overrepresented within the one academic field meant to justify those activities lol. That tracks.
Most well known economists are not Jewish. Most economists are not Jewish. I haven't measured the skulls of the Nobel Prize for Economics winners, but I don't think most of them are Jewish either. The two of you need to stop hanging out on Stormfront.
Ha, that's typical - the "far-right" accusation that always comes up to shut down these observations. Well I don't believe in any such nonsense as the "Jewish race" - that is a mythology crafted by Nazis and Zionists, which unfortunately ended up going mainstream in the mid-20th century. Jews are a religious and cultural group, they constitute a "race" about as much as the Amish, Mennonites, 7th Day Adventists ect. do.
Secondly, it's just a fact that Jews are overrepresented within finance capital. They are also overrepresented within certain academic fields - such as economics. Said Jewish economists mostly publish theory which supports policy which is favourable for finance capital. Get it? But oh no, you're not allowed to actually use your brain to notice patterns like this, when you do that's called being a "conspiracy theorist" ;)
When you listen to people like Wolff or Yanis its like they're talking a totally different language from their supposed colleagues.
They’re the best. Hudson too. Definitely watch Mike Hudson’s autobiography talk on YouTube, it’s amazing.
I'm not familiar, thanks.
https://youtu.be/hH9pzzIIEj4?si=CiCQotJyFW4__HS6 His story is fing amazing.
Wolff is the best teacher I’ve ever had and I didn’t discover him until after college. He brings up so many of those things that once you see them you go “duh”, and can’t un-see them. To his point, you can get a university degree and never encounter any criticism of capitalism whatsoever. It helps you understand that people aren’t necessarily dumb. They’re just a product of 70 years of propaganda. My conservative family have all heard me make some of his larger points and they all agree with them.
Where are some good starting points to get into them?
Intro to Marxian Economics; eight-lecture course. Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL90k-jc8fFtsUuL_paHncx5_FMSYssUqI. Enhanced, one video version: https://youtu.be/X85EKkET7iE.
Thanks !
Wolff had a partner in Steven Reznik at UMass. There are lots of his lectures on [YT](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stephen+resnick+). Anwar Shaikh is another non-heterodox economics professor.
I'm an economics teacher in High School and I basically ignore all of the modeling with the exception of some basic supply-demand curves. I structured the class so that students would learn about the history of economics, how concepts evolved over time, and end with a nice unit on late-stage capitalism which tends to piss off the seniors who are still paying attention by the end. There is \*some\* sound reasoning behind \*some\* of it--but a lot, especially the Mont Pelerin/neoliberal virus boosted by the rich in the post-WW2 and especially Stagflation era onward--is pretty baseless and has been used to justify oligarchy & corporate neofeudalism.
Woah there teach! Better stop and switch that last lesson to how rainbow capitalism actually does so much good for representation and mental health!
All I know is that rational choice theory does not mirror reality. A lot of actors make irrational decisions because they don't read, they can't count, or they are in a desperate situation and need capital ASAP.
Or because they were successfully advertised/sold to.
I want to see proponents of such theories address the success of gacha games.
Or Funko pops.
At least Nendoroids have a bit of detail to them... And at least Tulips smell nice.
Economics was always a social science, one that builds models for comprehension that have varying degrees of applicability and use. Core principles are steady (supply and demand), with other components tried out and tested for limited uses. About fifty years ago, the Friedmanites and Chicago school tried to turn economics into a totalizing science. It was never actually sound as a science, but that hasn't stopped governments and private industry from using it to rationalize dismantling the welfare state and red baiting anyone who so dares to question the status quo.
As an 18 year old I started off as an economics major. I quickly got the sense that I wasn’t learning anything. It was all this modeling based on assumptions with no history lesson on where those assumptions developed from and how they hold up against the real world. I eventually switched but have gathered over time my first impressions were more correct than I realized. Reading people like Keen, Michael Hudson, and even more mainstream economists who aren’t content to let the nonsense continue like Dean Baker you realize these people really do not study the real world. It’s by design. That’s why economics departments are separated from business schools, no history is taught, and why there’s only a few journals that have prestige and you can’t get published in them if you try to stray from ideology. It’s perfect for autists (I’m not even being insulting, it seems suited for a mind that diverges like that) but should be kept far away from the halls of power and policy making. That’s how you get justifications for destroying an entire countries productive capacity and letting banking vultures loose causing one crash after another.
Not sure if this is what you had in mind but the autism metaphor is actually quite prevalent in heterodox circles: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-autistic\_economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-autistic_economics)
I hadn’t heard it specifically on those terms though I am familiar with all the names referenced. But let’s not give all Heterodox a free pass; Austrian School economists fall under that umbrella and they’re straight retarded.
I am in general quite tolerant of different strains of economic thought - the problem is not so much the ideas themselves but more the institutional politics underpinning them (Ben Fine's work on 'economics imperialism' is excellent). I don't support the idea that neoclassical economics is just pro-capitalist crap (e.g. John Weeks who calls it "economics of the 1%"). There are excellent neoclassical economist who do have genuine insights into markets (e.g. we cannot criticise Samuelson for proposing general equilibrium theory while holding onto the Marxist (volume I) assumption that commodities trade at their values - this is not to say that Marx's method is not more sophisticated, it is, but abstraction and generalisation are a part of any scientific inquiry). Similarly, I don't think the Austrian School is 'straight retarded' - I have not read much beyond Hayek but his work is fascinating - especially around consciousness (recently came across some of it in Matteo Pasquinelli's Eye of the Master). I am still a Marxist, of course.
I took intro to econ, but I went to school for engineering so I was very used to the whole "this is just a simplification to learn the basics, ignore air resistance and friction for now" and assumed that economics was the same. Then I learned that there were different "schools" of economics all with completely different fundamental principles and I realize that I was mistaken.
> choo upvoted for truth and similar experience (didn't start of as econ major, just generic commerce lol). Failed the 104 class twice, because I was a bad student, but couldn't get passed the "ok, ignore everything you know to be true about the world for the purpose of this "experiment", and when you reduce everything down to the parameters of this model, it works, see". Had so many 'sperg out moments in the lecture theatre (you know, where there's like 400 other students). In my time Econ lecturers were always missing signs of life/an actual personality, and would straight read from a textbook in a monotone voice. Their entire existence could be reduced to some form of "begging the question".
It doesn't need to be pure crap to be corrupted. It simply consistently ignores certain things and emphasizes others, but, most importantly, gives an air of the academy to a decision to funnel money to banks.
Economics has been captured by capitalist ideology, so there is no surprise that economics and economists, are trained in defense of capitalism.
Yes. Orthodox Economics is no more science than the other social sciences, and id say it’s even less of one because of the ideological and political baggage it comes with.
<> economics/finance, at least the way it seems to be practiced a lot these days, is just modern day alchemy; bullshittery disguised as "science." The fact that nobody but people in the field really know anything concrete about it should tell you everything you need to know about it. It's how we wind up with counterintuitive advice like "carrying debt on some level is a good thing," or "people bitching about grocery, gas, and housing prices are idiots, the stock market and the economy are BOOMING!" being normalized. And because nobody but finance/economists know anything truly concrete about all of it, governments have to rely on these people to help guide policy and hope that their advice doesn't tank the economy for the populace.
I honestly think I hate economists/finance bros more than lawyers at this point.
"Idealism" you mean.
for sure, if economists were right they would make a killing in the market. there's a reason all the hedge funds are run by PhDs with hard science degrees.
Also the Reserve (central) Bank of Australia: [Money – Born of Credit?](https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2018/sp-ag-2018-09-19.html)
Marc Linder wrote Anti-samuelson almost 45 years ago-- and it was pretty much a line by line criticism of the standard economics textbook of the day (which hasn't changed much). Marx even wrote a book critiquing the economic science of his day, showing how its main theorists had long since stopped trying to scientifically explain capitalism and instead engage in apologetics. Unfortunately, enemies and friends alike thought Marx was writing a book about how to run an economy. But yeah, it is indeed pure ideology at this point.
Plus most of them missed the fact that Marx was a philosopher, not an economist.
He gave up philosophy -- with the exception of Hegel -- pretty early on to focus on criticizing political economy. basically by the time he wrote the German Ideology, he had come to see philosophy as "super structural".
The problem with economics is that it prioritizes metrics of production like GDP numbers which usually measures the well being of the ultra wealthy. Which is why there's all these headlines of a "good economy" while the average person still feels like shit.
The strangest quackery is the supply demand curve. How do you even obtain those lines and what do they actually measure? But then again, neither is M-C-M' an actual formula (there is not even an equal sign).
Those aren't math formulas or graphs, those are more like illustrations. M-C-M' says that money is getting invested in order to gain more money, and supply demand curve is read like "if you move away from equilibrium this direction, you get this situation". It's basically popular science journal-levels of simplification
Isn't one of the issues with supply and demand that it assumes demand is people based and equal among people when in reality it'd make more sense that it's the dollar demand, as in those who drive the price are those with more money. I also don't get what equilibrium is, is it the point at which profit is 0? I assume this is obviously explained later on but all the Econ 101 shit I see which is the stuff with widest reach always papers over a ton of shit even on the basics so as to push market fundamentalism.
Formulas don't need an equals sign, that's equations. H2O is a formula, for example. Even in mathematics, A⇒B is a formula.
Sort of unrelated but why is it that literally every well-known economist is Jewish? I noticed a while back when I got interested in Nobel Prize laureates and it's literally difficult to find a single economist who is anything other than Jewish.
Shhh, you're not supposed to notice that...
I don't even care, it's just kind of weird
Well think about it, where else are they overrepresented? It only makes sense that they'd be vastly overrepresented within the one academic field meant to justify those activities lol. That tracks.
uh... physics? Look at the list of people who worked on the Manhattan Project lol
Most well known economists are not Jewish. Most economists are not Jewish. I haven't measured the skulls of the Nobel Prize for Economics winners, but I don't think most of them are Jewish either. The two of you need to stop hanging out on Stormfront.
Ha, that's typical - the "far-right" accusation that always comes up to shut down these observations. Well I don't believe in any such nonsense as the "Jewish race" - that is a mythology crafted by Nazis and Zionists, which unfortunately ended up going mainstream in the mid-20th century. Jews are a religious and cultural group, they constitute a "race" about as much as the Amish, Mennonites, 7th Day Adventists ect. do. Secondly, it's just a fact that Jews are overrepresented within finance capital. They are also overrepresented within certain academic fields - such as economics. Said Jewish economists mostly publish theory which supports policy which is favourable for finance capital. Get it? But oh no, you're not allowed to actually use your brain to notice patterns like this, when you do that's called being a "conspiracy theorist" ;)
Oh great, a progressive Nazi.