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Unproductive Market Ideology

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Market, Ethics and Religion

Part of the book series: Ethical Economy ((SEEP,volume 62))

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Abstract

Nothing is wrong with economics. Sometimes, economics is better than its reputation, and in several case it has a lot to offer. What is, however, wrong, is mainstream economists’ ideological, liberalist abuse of economics. Simultaneously, economic speculation is being extended to still broader fields, where economists have no insight except an airy “economic way of thinking”. For decades we have known that the challenges of our time, global environment and global distribution, desperately require collective action, and also that this is precisely what market governance can not deliver. How market ideology could invade our collective mind so forcefully during these same decades remains a mystery.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Leontief (1938) characterizes Marx as the great character reader of capitalism.

  2. 2.

    Julian Simon won the bet between Paul Ehrlich and himself concerning raw materials prices in the 1980’s, but he could have lost if Paul Ehrlich had accepted his offer to go “double or quits” for a future date. (The Economist, 6 August 2011, p 58).

  3. 3.

    The head of the Danish central bank, Erik Hoffmeyer, in the Danish newspaper Politiken, 13 December 1981.

  4. 4.

    Layard (2005). But “As for the understanding of life, the philosophy of happiness that’s being propagated now, it’s simply hard to believe that it’s spoken seriously, it’s such a ridiculous remnant”. Boris Pasternak: Doktor Zhivago, 1955 (1994, 332).

  5. 5.

    Concerning the distribution of wealth as opposed to the distribution of wages, a mechanistic explation is possible: if savings as well as the return on capital are constant and GDP growth rates decline, the share of profits tend to increase at the expense of wages (Piketty 2014; The Economist 4 January 2014, p 57).

  6. 6.

    Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 3, quoted by Marx (Paris Manuscripts, 1844; Marx & Engels Werke, Ergänzungsband:1.564), to whom money was a prime example of alienation, cf. Werke 23:146; Marx 1974:805–806, 823–826.

  7. 7.

    The Stern-report (2007), 45–47, 161–163) uses a rate of 1.4%, including a pure time preference set at 0.1% for the one reason that there is a probability greater than zero that humanity will perish, after which no costs or benefits need to be taken into account.

  8. 8.

    The novel was banned by court, not because of the dinner speech, but because of pornography, which appear rather innocent by current standards, but finally it was acquitted by Supreme Court in 1958.

  9. 9.

    See for example the excellent book on economic organization by Milgrom and Roberts 1999.

  10. 10.

    Charles Gide was a brother of the author André Gide.

  11. 11.

    Although public health never determined alcohol taxation in Denmark; considerations were rather related to provision of grain for food, government coffers and EU internal market policies.

  12. 12.

    William S. Knudsen – “Mr. Nudsen” or “Big Bill” – was not a socialist, but sympathized with Germany in the early 1930s, and had no military training, as he was not admitted to the military either in Denmark, where he lived until his 20s, or in the USA. But he was a former director of Ford Motor Company, first, and General Motors, later.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Hans Aage

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  1. Hans Aage
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Correspondence to Hans Aage .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Niels Kærgård

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Aage, H. (2023). Unproductive Market Ideology. In: Kærgård, N. (eds) Market, Ethics and Religion. Ethical Economy, vol 62. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08462-1_4

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