(JAI: It took me about an hour to read this essay and the title does not betray the content.)
All the Economics You Need to Know in One Lesson by Michael D. Yates http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yates141006p.html Some quotes from the article: "The dominant economic theory is called the "neoclassical" theory; it is the only one taught in all but a handful of graduate schools. It is the one I was taught, and it is the one the economist we met in Santa Fe was taught. It is preached with a zeal and demand for conformity that has led critics to characterize it as a religious cult." "In such an economy the society's productive wealth is owned by a small fraction of the population. This property is protected by the law, which means that is protected by police force, that is by the state's use of violence....low wages or poverty are the direct result of choices made by individuals." "The theory has repeatedly proven itself a poor model of reality, failing test after test: there is no evidence that a higher minimum wage causes a loss of employment; there is no correlation between a worker's wages and a worker's productivity; there is no evidence that providing people with needed resources, as in a welfare system, causes them to use their time unproductively; "If the poorest 47 percent of the world's people (about 2.5 billion persons) pooled their yearly incomes, they could just purchase the assets of the world's wealthiest 225 individuals. "There is no compelling reason why there couldn't be far greater equality, work worthy of human beings, and harmony between us and the natural world." "...planning and decision-making can and should be done on as local a level as possible." "Smaller-scale, locally-oriented, environmentally-sound, gardens-everywhere agriculture needs to replace, as much as possible, the large-scale, corporate farming ..." "...workers and communities must jointly manage as many of our workplaces as possible." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
