Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Clinging to magical-thinking fixes that change nothing on the fundamental level hastens collapse.
Here we stand on the precipice, and all we have in our kit is a collection of delusional magical thinking that we label “solutions.” We are not just morally and financially bankrupt, we’re intellectually bankrupt as well.
Here are three examples of magical thinking that pass for intellectually sound ideas:
1. Mainstream neo-classical/ Keynesian economics. As economist Manfred Max-Neef notes in this interview, neo-classical/ Keynesian economics is no longer a discipline or a science–it is a religion.
It demands a peculiar faith in nonsense: for example, the environment–Nature– is merely a subset of the economy. When we’ve stripped the seas of wild fish (and totally destroyed the ecology of the oceans), no problem–we’ll substitute farmed fish, which are in economic terms, entirely equal to wild fish.
In other words, the natural world cannot be valued in our current mock-science religion of economics.
Other absurdities abound. Stripping the seas of wild fish adds to GDP, so it’s all good, right? Dismantling newly constructed buildings and building a replacement structure also adds to GDP, so it’s an excellent source of “growth.”
Continue reading “Our Intellectual Bankruptcy: The “Religion” Of Economics, UBI, & Medicare For All”
