Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Behind today’s ‘free market’ advocacy is the power of financial wealth to appropriate the political, fiscal and central planning role that Polanyi, Marx and other socialists hoped to see expanded in the hands of democratic government.
Bullshit jobs are ones where the person doing them secretly believes that if the job (or even sometimes the entire industry) were to disappear, it would make no difference — or perhaps, as in the case of say telemarketers, lobbyists, or many corporate law firms, the world would be a better place.
Bioeconomics is the default worldview for contemporary economic thought, public policy and politics. The only problem is that, by the lights of the latest biological sciences, this narrative is wrong, seriously wrong.
I first read this remarkable passage by Milton Friedman a few years ago in Steve Keen’s book Debunking Economics. Keen is one of only twelve economists to have predicted the recent great recession so he is entirely credible. Still I’m a skeptical person and with due respect to Friedman I had to read the original paper.
