My observation is that SH is less an ideological economist than an ideological rightist i.e. less a follower of Friedman than a follower of that other dark intellectual lord Leo Strauss (that's why using the term is an bit of irony...
SH is less concerned with maintaining the purity of the market -- it seems that he sees that as something expedient to use as part of his broad political strategy rather than v.v. (but I could be wrong... A lot of people in Canada at the moment are waiting with stopped breath to see how SH will in fact operate now that he has more or less total political control. The mood in Canada at the moment among the (upper) chattering classes (the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail for example) is "please be gentle with us... We had to give you absolute power to keep the red hordes away from the treasury but Genghis, perhaps your bloodthirstiness was just a ruse to frighten us into submission and now that we have given you the keys to the kingdom perhaps your true colours as an elightened and democratic despot will come shining through... We wait... M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 12:22 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: FW: So which one is coming outof thetelephone booth... > No, Harper is a "trained economist" (a private joke for Canadians > :(... Despite being in Canada, I had to go look that up. I didn't know SH claimed to be a "trained economist". (I guess I don't watch enough television.) For other troglodytes such as I, a bit of a backgrounder here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/it-could-be-worse-stephen-harpe r-could-really-be-an-economist/article1778607/ >From the article: Here's the problem: Besides the various branches [of economics], there are different schools within the study of economics, some less extreme in their embrace of the magic of the market than others. As it happens, Stephen Harper emerged from the Calgary School, inspired by the Chicago School and its saint, Milton Friedman. In this sect, ideology trumps evidence every time and delusional fantasies about capitalism are treated as axioms. One of Prof. Friedman's laws, for example, goes as follows: "Few trends so thoroughly undermine free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of any responsibly other than to make as much money for their stakeholders a possible." This natural law has been enthusiastically embraced by the world's corporations, including, for example, the many Canadian mining companies operating in poor countries. I might add that, increasingly, corporations (collectively), the corporate mind set and individuals bound closely to corporate doctrine are becoming our role models. Control of the media landscape by national security strategists [1] is only part of it. To the extent that we learn to emulate such models, we emulate psychopaths. The best result we can expect from that is cognitive dissonance. Less appealing than cognitive dissonance is gradual change that I might call gradual religious conversion to acceptance of "delusional fantasies." [1] http://cryptome.org/0003/obl-kill-mmo.doc -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
