Real, meaningful, and major differences in economical views are re-emerging?

[Tamas]

Wall Street thread made me think.

I think we are entering a period when a perhaps decisive discourse/clash between various ways of economic thinking wil take place.

I know, these discussions never went away formally, but were the major sides REALLY that different in practice? Seemed like a general balance between "free market" and a welfare state stabilized.

Now we know, it stabilized on cross-loaning and virtual money, which was pissed away and stolen freely by governments, businessmen, and the general public.

This system is now increasingly challenged from both sides - some want drastically more redistribution and state oversight, others drastically less. The topic of a drastic change is back on the -mostly- mainstream table once again after quite many decades.

And I am not only talking about the Hipsterify Wall Street or the Teabaggers, but also more drastic proposals in terms of the EUs future and such.

Discuss, or tear apart.

[Valmy]

Well I don't know.  I think entrenched interests profit from the system too much for any effective political challenge besides the frustrated screams of the dispossessed.  Any political party who tries to challenge the system will be shouted down as extremist and insane and so forth.

[Viking]

No. Coddled western societies have allowed themselves to indulge in idiotic philosophizing and politicizing when real economics keep paying for their societies.

We, the grown ups, are paying for the idiots who keep increasing in number. We are not getting differing economic views. We are rather coming to a point where the effects of the abdication of responsibility for the economy by the masses is being noticed by the masses.

I think the big question is if the masses will acquire economic literacy by learning from others or if they will acquire it by learning from experience.

[DGuller]

I don't think that there actually are real and/or meaningful differences.  There is a school of thought that represents the best of what we currently know about macroeconomics, and there is a brand of charlatanism being pushed by people who profit from that charlatanism being thought of as a legitimate economic theory.

[Valmy]

No. Coddled western societies have allowed themselves to indulge in idiotic philosophizing and politicizing when real economics keep paying for their societies.

We, the grown ups, are paying for the idiots who keep increasing in number. We are not getting differing economic views. We are rather coming to a point where the effects of the abdication of responsibility for the economy by the masses is being noticed by the masses.

I think the big question is if the masses will acquire economic literacy by learning from others or if they will acquire it by learning from experience.

Wait wait...what is this historical epic when the masses were savvy with economics and ran the economy?

[Tamas]

I don't think that there actually are real and/or meaningful differences.  There is a school of thought that represents the best of what we currently know about macroeconomics, and there is a brand of charlatanism being pushed by people who profit from that charlatanism being thought of as a legitimate economic theory.

in an easy-to-digest format:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

[Warspite]

No. Coddled western societies have allowed themselves to indulge in idiotic philosophizing and politicizing when real economics keep paying for their societies.

We, the grown ups, are paying for the idiots who keep increasing in number. We are not getting differing economic views. We are rather coming to a point where the effects of the abdication of responsibility for the economy by the masses is being noticed by the masses.

I think the big question is if the masses will acquire economic literacy by learning from others or if they will acquire it by learning from experience.

Wait wait...what is this historical epic when the masses were savvy with economics and ran the economy?

I think it was the same era when a man could hold open a door for a woman and not get slapped, and when cigarettes gave you chest hair rather than cancer.

[Brazen]

I think it was the same era when a man could hold open a door for a woman and not get slapped

That only happens if he uses it as an opportunity to pinch your bum.

[Grallon]

...


This system is now increasingly challenged from both sides - some want drastically more redistribution and state oversight, others drastically less. The topic of a drastic change is back on the -mostly- mainstream table once again after quite many decades.

And I am not only talking about the Hipsterify Wall Street or the Teabaggers, but also more drastic proposals in terms of the EUs future and such.

First of all I am tired of hearing these OWS protesters dismissed as grungy youngsters when there are numerous reports of good standing citizens protesting alongside them. 

-----

As for your question - this is nothing new - merely the old opposition between 'liberty' and 'equality' that is surfacing again.  Since the fall of the USSR the US has been trumpeting the superiority of its model...whose limits we now have reached.




G.

[Viking]

No. Coddled western societies have allowed themselves to indulge in idiotic philosophizing and politicizing when real economics keep paying for their societies.

We, the grown ups, are paying for the idiots who keep increasing in number. We are not getting differing economic views. We are rather coming to a point where the effects of the abdication of responsibility for the economy by the masses is being noticed by the masses.

I think the big question is if the masses will acquire economic literacy by learning from others or if they will acquire it by learning from experience.

Wait wait...what is this historical epic when the masses were savvy with economics and ran the economy?

The epoque with the economics savvyness of the people is the one immediately following an economic catastrophy or an economic miracle. Edwardian Englishmen were dogmatic free traders, post-WWII Germans were dogmatic sound moneyists.

It's not really an golden age of economic literacy, but I suggest that economic literacy is a function of recent economic change.

We are not entering an age where an alternative to liberal free market economics is being proposed, rather that were are in a situation where there is anger at the inability of the market to provide the value that people have assumed would be provided.

[The Brain]

There's still only the same two groups: the non-hackers who want others to pay for them and the contributors who keep society in business.

[crazy canuck]

I heard one of the protestors interviewed yesterday and I think he nailed it (by the way this was a real homeless person who had lost their job and cant afford to live in this city anymore).  When questioned as to what he and the others were protesting he said he didnt know for sure.  There are just a lot of unhappy people that dont see much of a future.

I dont think this has anything to do with fundamentally different economic views.  The big debates around the world now are how much money should go to various budget line items or not.  That may change is some leader emerges who proposes a plan which incorporates an alternative economic model but has happened yet and likely wont.  Most of the protestors seem to be people that want to reform the current system in some way not people who want to tear it down.

ie For every Grallon there are an uncountable multitude.

[Grallon]

... Most of the protestors seem to be people that want to reform the current system in some way not people who want to tear it down.

ie For every Grallon there are an uncountable multitude.

And since we know things won't change until they bust - I shall be proven right in the end. 




G.

[crazy canuck]

And since we know things won't change until they bust - I shall be proven right in the end. 




G.

If you define "bust" as the world melting when the Sun expands to the point that it envelopes the Earth then yes I suspect you will be proven correct in the end.

[Grallon]

If you define "bust" as the world melting when the Sun expands to the point that it envelopes the Earth then yes I suspect you will be proven correct in the end.

Be in denial if you must. *shrug*




G.