You mellifluous beast, you! On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Max Sawicky <[email protected]> wrote:
> Calumny. I've been told my tones are quite mellifluous. > > > > > On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > >> http://www.thenation.com/article/hip-heterodoxy >> Hip Heterodoxy >> Christopher Hayes | May 24, 2007 >> >> It's a Friday night in January, and I am searching for a free >> drink among 9,000 economists. Every year a sizable portion of the >> nation's economists descend on some lucky city for the Allied >> Social Science Associations Annual Meeting, the economics field's >> largest gathering, a kind of carnival of suits and supply curves. >> Most academic disciplines have a similar annual convention, but no >> other can boast the same influence on American politics and >> policy--after all, Presidents don't appoint a council of >> anthropological advisers. It doesn't take long for mainstream >> academic thinking to become the foundation for the government's >> macroeconomic policy. In 1968 Milton Friedman, then president of >> the American Economics Association (AEA), devoted his presidential >> address to arguing against Keynesian meddling in the economy and >> for a monetary policy focused on restraining inflation. A decade >> later, his prescriptions would be largely adopted. In 2005 onetime >> Reagan adviser Martin Feldstein called for Social Security >> privatization just as Republicans in Washington were mobilizing >> (unsuccessfully) toward the same end. >> >> This year's conference attendees are packed into the mammoth >> glass-and-brick Chicago Hyatt. On the second evening, I come >> across two receptions facing off across a basement hallway. If you >> wanted to get a sense of the status hierarchies of the profession, >> this was a perfect tableau. On one side, a reception in honor of >> the impending rebroadcast of the late Milton Friedman's famed >> miniseries Free to Choose, a wildly successful bit of >> laissez-faire propaganda now set to reach a new generation of >> unsuspecting blue-state audiences. The room is packed and festive, >> with several Nobel laureates milling about, chicken satay skewers >> available for noshing and an open bar. (A man behind me in line >> complains of the free drinks that "Milton wouldn't approve! >> Because we're not getting the true price of the drinks.") Across >> the hall, a reception hosted by the Economic Policy Institute >> (EPI), a left-liberal Washington think tank that advocates >> policies--higher minimum wage, easier paths to unionization, >> social insurance--that are in almost every detail the opposite of >> everything that Friedman stood for. In that room, perhaps thirty >> people gather, picking at the cheese cubes and shelling out $6 a >> drink at the cash bar. The EPI's Max Sawicky, an imposing presence >> with a long gray ponytail and growling voice, tells me the turnout >> is better than usual. >> >> After grabbing a free drink in the Friedman reception, I strike up >> a conversation with economist Michael Perelman in the hallway. >> Balding, with long gray hair, he has the intense, unblinking mien >> of a self-published science fiction writer, or a former grad >> student of Timothy Leary's. Perelman, who is there for the EPI >> reception, works at the margins of the discipline; he is one of a >> few hundred self-described "heterodox" economists at the >> conference. His last book, Railroading Economics, was about the >> creation of the "free market mythology," and his next book is >> titled The Confiscation of American Prosperity: From Right-Wing >> Extremism and Economic Ideology to the Next Great Depression. I >> ask him about how he relates to the so-called mainstream of his >> profession. "It's a mafia," he says quietly, his eyes roving over >> to the suits spilling out of the Freedom to Choose room. >> >> (clip) >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
