Listen to Alternative Visions show of July 2, 2021, which concludes a 3 part commentary on why Keynes’ economics is not Keynesian and why mainstream economists have purged much of Keynes’ original ideas to make them ‘fit’ with their more conservative (pre-Keynes economic) analyses of capitalist economy. ‘Keynesian’ economics as a bastardized, hybrid of ‘safe’ Keynes and pre-Keynes economic analysis vs. Keynes’ economics as a more fundamental critique of capitalist economic analysis. (Next week listen to the show for the start of a 3-part similar analysis of Marx’s economics and why Marx failed to fully break from his bourgeois classical economics (Smith, Ricardo, et. al.) predecessors’.
To Listen to the show GO TO:
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-part-3-keynes-economics-vs-keynesian/
Show Announcement
Dr. Rasmus concludes the 3-part overview of why Keynes’ economics is not ‘Keynesian’, focusing on the sometime radical conclusions and analysis of Keynes that is conveniently ignored by mainstream economics. Recapping the two prior shows explanation, Rasmus addresses Keynes’ views on financial asset markets, financial instability, and the rise and growing influence of professional speculators on the stability of the capitalist system. Why financial markets are often key to capitalist instability, contrary to mainstream economists and ‘Keynesians’ who largely ignore its role. (The show concludes with a brief commentary on the recent US Supreme Court decision further again gutting US voting rights and Democracy, giving a new green light of support to expanding voter suppression in the pro-Trump legislators in the red states. Check out Rasmus’ posting of how Neoliberalism is driving Democracy decline, in last chapter of his 2020 book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism’, posted on http://jackrasmus.com blog later today, July 2.)
The distortions and suppression’s of Keynes’s ideas are not limited to mainstream economists: it is also evident in progressive/left discussions of economic issues. For example, in Piketty’s work Capital he concludes after reviewing 200 years of economic history that inherited wealth always outstrips earned wealth over time. He makes no reference to Keynes’s work that established that income wealth disparities are structurally built into capitalism and thus Piketty only confirms what Keynes concluded in 1935. Paul Krugman, an enthusiastic reviewer of Piketty’s Capital also makes no note of Keynes’s ideas relating to income wealth disparity. If physics were an area of intellectual endeavor like economics physicists would rediscover gravity every other decade. It’s bizarre
So what is the take away from these broadcasts on Keynes? The answer lies in the response to the question why is economics the dismal science? The answer is that economics is not dismal unless you strip it of science: if it were truly a scientific endeavor then it would be a vehicle for prosperity for all and not the degraded weapon of oppression of the many. Right wing, left wing, and progressive thinkers almost all to one degree or another promulgate as economics a toxic mix of distortions, suppressions, and downright lies. This in turn brings up one of the most important issues of our time: the politicization of science, the issue which Brecht confronted in his play Galileo.