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I have also reached the conclusion that it takes satire to change the system. Only by pointing out the absurdity and lunacy of the current system, will we have any chance of changing it. And Douglas Adams is the master:

“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn’t grow on trees you know.” “If you would allow me to continue…” Ford nodded dejectedly. “Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.” Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed. “But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut.” Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down. “So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and…er, burn down all the forests. I think you’ll all agree that’s a sensible move under the circumstances.” The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn.

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Yes, my default theory for why we’ve made such a mess of this planet is that Golgafinchians are in charge. They’re certainly the economists

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Satire is good, but conscious discovery of the exact operant applied paradigm concept and where best to actually apply it is key. The Copernican cosmological paradigm concept didn't take effect until Galileo saw the moons of Jupiter and Kepler discovered that orbits were ellipses instead of perfect circles. All the data is there to find these required additional phenomena we just need to look directly at the economic process itself and think integratively about the where and how to implement it so as to best resolve the problems we've identified.

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Jun 29, 2023Liked by Steve Keen

Personally, I always identified as Marvin the Paranoid Android. I'm hoping to find something better to do than parking cars.

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I'm getting more like him with age...

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Neoclassical economics is indeed like A Small Lump Of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning

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Yes indeed. Neoclassical economics is Vogon poetry. The fact that many Earthlings like it is the REAL reason that we are shunned by the truly intelligent species in the Galaxy.

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I do wonder, if Douglas Adams were writing now, whether the Vogons would have told us all "it's fine, we've been forced to buy you another planet as an environmental offset."

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No, Paul has it right: Neoclassical economists are Vogons in disguise. Why go to all the trouble of demolishing the planet for a hyperspace bypass if, with Neoclassicals in charge, Earthlings will do it themselves for free?

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Paradigms are nothing more and certainly nothing less than the operant idea(s) creating/enforcing the realities...of entire patterns of thought, bodies of knowledge and areas of human endeavor. All of MMT, Keen's Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis, Hudson's Financial Parasitism, UBI and Ellen Brown's Public Banking have the problematic area of the economy surrounded, namely "money, debt and banks/banking". So why then do we not make a concerted effort to analyze and discern the specific new paradigm concept that, applied, will change the entire economy and the money system?

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The neoclassicals lay in the stagnant pool.

They lay. They rotted. They turned

Around occasionally.

Bits of flesh dropped off them from

Time to time.:And sank into the pool's mire.

They also smelt a great deal - Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, 37 Wasp Villas, Greenbridge, Essex, GB10 1LL

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No, it's too good. Didn't generate the right amount of squirming. Go back and learn from a master:

‘O freddled gruntbuggly . . .’ he began. Spasms racked Ford’s body – this was worse than even he’d been prepared for. ‘. . . thy micturations are to me / As plurdled gabbleblotch-its on a lurgid bee.’

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Ah, there's a reason why the classics are the classics....

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