Friday, June 26, 2015

Steve Keen — Bureaucrazies Versus Democracy

The most recent of the almost daily “Greek Crises” has made one thing clear: the Troika of the IMF, the EU and the ECB is out to break the government of Greece....
A huge part of the European program was directed at taking economics out of the hands of wayward, corruptible politicians, and endowing economic bureaucrats with the power to make economic policy instead.
This belief that economists know better than politicians how to run an economy was enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty itself, which limited government deficits to 3% of GDP and government debt to 60% of GDP. It was a set of rules designed to shackle political freedom, so that the economy could flourish under the incorruptible leadership of experts.
Some experts. Firstly they designed a system which would only work if capitalism never had crises. Secondly, when a crisis hit, rather than backpedalling on their flawed rules, they doubled up on them. Then, when the people had the temerity to elect a government which opposed their agenda… Well it’s obvious, isn’t it? The people must be overthrown....
But the conditions the IMF, EU and ECB are insisting upon here are so extreme, and their behaviour so counter to the very concept of democracy, that maybe the Greeks would do better to show them what a democratic government can do. Maybe they should leave the Euro, and default on all their debts—especially those to the Troika. The financial stimulus from throwing off the yoke of debt may counterbalance the initial chaos from re-instituting a national currency in a seriously damaged society.
It may also teach the bureaucrazies—and no, that is not a misprint—a lesson about the limits of bureaucratic power.
Forbes
Bureaucrazies Versus Democracy
Steve Keen

5 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Establishing and evaluating goals within the NIA framework is NOT "running the economy"..

Its ex post accounting. ... accountants dont run anything...

Random said...

MF, yes and this is what pisses me off about the 'MMT is just simplistic accounting' like MMT never does analysis properly.
We are concerned about REAL stuff.

Matt Franko said...

R, everyone is obsessed with the 'financial'.... makes me want to say 'who the F cares! !!!"...

Pretty frustrating. . Rsp

Anonymous said...

“The love of '$money' is the root of all evil”. Why? Because money is a symbol for concretised human energy; human energy directed towards the material world. There is nothing wrong with manufacturing a rolex watch, or growing a cob of corn, or social relations. It's when you 'fall in love' with a rolex watch the problems begin. Human energy, ultimately is meant to be directed home, imho. I think 'home' is within us and from there, above. Ever noticed just how weird your thoughts can be, just before you wake up ….

Matt Franko said...

JR,

It's "a fondness for silver which is a root of all the evils..."

"Money" is an English metonym the Greek language Paul used didn't have metonyms, the word there is 'philargurion" which is 'philos' or fondness (perhaps 'brotherly love' ) and ' argurion' which is the metal silver... The Greeks didn't have a word for "money" ...

And it is just A root ie only one of the roots....

You look back at what happened when metal love took over and we gave up on state currency for almost the last 2,000 years there was a lot of evil running rampant.. Dark ages , rapine colonialism, etc.....

Now we've some how been able to get out from under the spell of the metals but it's just getting started and there are still many/mostly hangers-on to the metals... Ie libertarian morons of varying degree...

This is a good example of how F-Ed up the languages still are... Words like "money" " love" etc... Nobody even knows what these are it is so f-ed up still... This will end eventually:

"For then do I turn unto peoples a pure lip, To call all of them by the name of Jehovah, To serve Him with one shoulder.." Zeph 3:9

He has to first purify our language this will go a long way for us... Can't happen soon enough imo...

Rsp