This brings to mind Sigmund Freud and his theory that the human psyche was divided into the id, ego and superego. He expounded on this a great deal and it was tossed about a lot until critics accused him of reifying his concepts.
Reify (v.): To regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence. |
Freud spoke, critics said, as if these abstract concepts--id, ego and superego--actually existed within people's minds.
We might similarly criticize economists for being so wound up in their economic variables and concepts that they bear less and less relation to the real needs of real people, unless in some cases they relate to the needs of real financiers and corporatists to "earn" more and more income, regardless of the plight of others.
These economists' convoluted theories are usually not understood by the legislators and other government officials who seem compelled to act upon them. But they pick up buzzwords spun off by the theorists--deficit, austerity, debt--and these shaky ideas are spread via the media and absorbed by the citizenry until they are reluctantly accepted while the jobless, the sick, the disabled, the unlucky wonder what happened that they must suffer misery even though the government is doing things they don't understand to supposedly preserve the integrity of the national economy. (BTW, "economy" is a reified concept too.)
I am not proposing that we discard economic theories. I only want to insist that we get them right, get them fixed so that they impact favorably upon people's lives. Progressive economic ideas look first at the people's real needs, the world's real needs and see how they can be provided for within a national economic framework rather than manipulating numbers and variables because a theory calls for it regardless of its damage to humanity.
In my recent book I proposed somewhat radical ideas for the future, but for the present I am going with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) because it is realistic and offers favorable outcomes for humanity.
The Money and Public Purpose group on Daily Kos is actively trying to engage everyone in the ideas of Modern Monetary Theory.
Here are some of the group's recent diaries. I urge you to follow our group Money and Public Purpose (here),to learn more about the advantages of MMT.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thank you for reading and reccing.
psyched