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The Age of Finance Capital -- and the Irrelevance of Mainstream Economics
Hossein-Zadeh, Ismail
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/11/the-age-of-finance-capital-and-the-irrelevance-of-mainstream-economics/Date Written: 2015-09-11 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2015 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX18051 Despite the fact that the manufacturers of ideas have elevated economics to the (contradictory) levels of both a science and a religion, a market theodicy, mainstream economics does not explain much when it comes to an understanding of real world developments. Indeed, as a neatly stylized discipline, economics has evolved into a corrupt, obfuscating and useless -- nay, harmful -- field of study. Abstract: - Excerpt: in the age of finance capital, central banks have evolved as institutions designed to subsidize the powerful financial interests with public money. Win-win gambling is, of course, an oxymoronic expression. Yet, that's exactly what Wall Street banks and other financial institutions are enjoying nowadays: they win as long as the financial bubbles they create continue expanding, but they also win when the bubbles burst; as they are then compensated for their losses with bail-out monies and all kinds of other shady rescue plans. And who would ultimately pay for the blackmailing moneys thus bestowed upon the too-big-to-fail banks and other financial entities? The answer is, of course, the people-through extensive measures of austerity cuts. Under liberal capitalism of the competitive industrial era, a long cycle of economic contraction would usually wipe out not only jobs and production, but also the debt burdens that were accumulated during the expansionary cycle that preceded the cycle of contraction. Although such massive debt destructions were often painful, especially to giant financial speculators, they also occasioned much larger salutary effects of unburdening the society/economy of unsustainable debts and, thus, bringing about a fresh start, or a clean slate. Subject Headings |