Political economy recognises that all power persists so long as its narrative can be supported by society. And political economy presumes that those with alternative narratives have power simply because of their ability to tell those other stories.
MMT is an alternative narrative.
Even, just making stuff up. Explains a lot.
Political economy recognises that all power persists so long as its narrative can be supported by society. And political economy presumes that those with alternative narratives have power simply because of their ability to tell those other stories.
This is gibberish. Yet, I can see him quietly smiling to himself as he wrote it, allowing himself the guilty pleasure of savoring the profundity of his own insight.
Political economy doesn’t recognise or presume anything. Spud’s picked up some post-modernist leftist jargon about ‘narratives’, and, without realising it, has stupidly committed himself to relativism or ‘anti-foundationalism’ in economics. For if the success of an economic theory depends on its ideological ‘narrative’, then the success of an economic theory depends on the propaganda produced for it rather than on its empirical outcome. Economics ceases to be evidence-based and becomes based on ideology – like MMT.
Brilliant by Theo
Thanks, Bongo.
An opportunity to rehearse a theory I’ve held for some time. We first hear about Spud when he’s writing How-To tax avoidance columns in the Graun. Before that, he was involved with the tax efficient establishment of the Trivial Pursuits operation in the Republic. Maybe he found there wasn’t much of a future for him writing on methods to minimise tax. The market being saturated. But discovered there was a market for wring on methods of minimising tax from a perspective of decrying it. And that where with the former, it requires a great deal of knowledge the finer details of tax regulations, with the later you can pretty well make it up as you go along. And therefore Richard Murphy, tax expert, political economist & academic is entirely a gig. He’s in the business of telling people what they want to hear. A well tried & tested way of making a living.* Basis of the newspaper industry, isn’t it? Not to mention people who write books about ancient astronauts or aromatherapy. Not saying he’s that good at it. But he’s scraping a living.
*I’ve a mate whose wife reckons she’s a “therapist” with a device that produces a high voltage but very low amperage electrical current. Sort of very gentle cattle prod. It also has a display measures its own battery voltage level. She’s graduated to the level where she sells the things at a grand a time & provides a course on using it for another couple. The fortnight residential course in Mexico is inspired. Enables them to escape the British winters whilst continuing to stash the loot. There seems to be absolutely no limit to the numbers of gullible people will pay to swallow woo.
There was a great Continental philosopher* who said “Whenever I feel I’ve written something particularly profound, I first translate it into English to see if it makes any sense whatsoever”. A pity Spud doesn’t do the same.
* and I’ve forgotten which one
It’s telling that he’s focused on the power of the storytellers without concern for the consequences of the stories