Re: [PEN-L] Michael Yates and Peter McLaren on Teaching

[Eugene Coyle]

Sabri,     Don't divorce us!  You've only just come back after your trial separation.     You included my name when you invited contributions the first time.  I was intrigued because I would love to go to Turkey.  But like many men, I didn't respond till the threat of divorce was raised, though I would have, I swear, I'm just slow.     This is what I planned to say:     David Shemano, our non-socialist libertarian co-habitor (or is he Austrian?  I'm not good at accents.) touched off the "NC economics"  thread about -- or what I thought it was about -- by writing: This is a repeated theme on this list and I presume in general of Lefty criticism of NC economics. But I don't think I understand the criticism. Could you educate me? Why is it a criticism that NC assumes as a fact some people prefer chocolate and some prefer vanilla, but doesn't have anything to say why some prefer chocolate and some prefer vanilla? (Is that a fair description of the issue?). Why can't NC economists say that type of question may be interesting to others (psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, etc.), but not really relevant to the questions that NC economists find interesting? Aha, I thought.  Finally Shemano can, to the world's great benefit, be enlightened.  With a little typing, I thought, this will promptly be cleared up.  Taste is not only independent, as others on the list said so well.  Shemano himself knows that, I thought, let me just point out that everybody knows that, and I'll be on my way to clearing this up.     My take was that NC economics is a brilliant, fascinating and hegemonic system of logic that is totally dependent on assumptions.  Assumptions which everybody knows (including well over 99% of NC economists) don't comport with reality.  Once Shemano sees that, I thought, he will know that NC economics, though not concerned with the economy, is a powerful, unbelievably powerful, machine that controls the minds of policy makers, journalists, and worse, the public.  It controls as well, of course, the minds of its NC economist practioners.      But I had mistaken Shemano's questions.  He evidently knows that NC economics is bullsh*t.  He's been reading the Austrians.  I wasn't addressing his question.     And that is why I didn't book a flight to Istanbul before even responding to your appeal.  Everybody at the Socialist Economics Congress will already know that NC economics is barren of useful content. (I know, some on the list think there are some uses of it, but think of a dried-out drug addict with a painful injury:  A little opium is not indicated.  Didn't Keynes say he spent his lifetime trying to escape it?  That's the story of a reformed addict.)      What I, and millions, billions, of others want to know is this:  What is the replacement for capitalism and how do we get it?  I was wrong before to presume to know David Shemano's question, but I think now that that is his question, too.  What is the future, since the present is destroying people and the environment?  If I'm wrong again, my apology.  The paper answering that question I won't have ready for the December conference.  People at the conference are already beyond my little attack on NC economics.  I once wrote "Debating with economists is pointless.  Simple and complete rejection is the way to deal with them.  Economic theory is past its sell-by-date   Economists nevertheless go on training successive generations in meaningless and destructive modeling. Economists are like the Bourbons, of whom Talleyrand remarked that "They forgot nothing and they learned nothing."     So, Sabri, don't divorce us.  I don't have a contribution for December.  Maybe next time.  I hope some others have been stirred by your threat.  We need you in this relationship.  We even need David Shemano. Gene Coyle     Sabri Oncu wrote: I am getting sick and tired of seeing such announcements from my North American friends who fight the most important fight of all but no response from any of them to my announcements of the Socialist Economics Congress in Turkey. If it goes like this, I tell you, I will divorce all of you and go my own way! We need international supporters. Take a look at this: http://www.iktisatkongresi.org/index.php?yazi=3216 Please write to me with the titles of your contributions. What kind of internationalists are you? Sabri