This is a great observation! It resonates strongly for me with Dan Davies's The Unaccountability Machine, which looks at that nature of economics to simplify the world for the sake of measuring it and through that lens examines why the modern shareholder-driven corporation so often makes decisions that are bad for the world and even itself in the long run.
The problems with academic economics goes deeper that just relying on things they can measure. The assumption that the things they can measure are indeed measurable is mostly false.
Excellent piece, Luke. Seems relevant to me also (with the necessary caveats about generalizing in this way) that political economy as a discipline is much more left wing than political science or economics.
It’s interesting to see an episode from the dawn of neoliberalism. It didn't spring out fully formed from Milton Friedman’s head.
I think that realizing political science and economics are intrinsically linked was a critical moment for me on my political journey. In my early 20s before I had formed my own political opinions I read a book where a guy would take a road trip though the Deep South to learn about racism and while he was an earnest and smart guy, it kind of couldn’t be more than superficial because politics divorced from economics will only get you so far. I’m really grateful for books like “The open veins of Latin America” and “How Europe underdeveloped Africa” because they were great gateways into Marxist economics if you’re coming to politics from a social justice perspective.
I haven’t really used social media in years, but I remember a pretty vocal outcry against people that said you need to “read theory” and I think that stems from cutting politics and economics as well. Which was sad, because you can’t just read it, you need to talk about it to fucking understand it!
This is a great observation! It resonates strongly for me with Dan Davies's The Unaccountability Machine, which looks at that nature of economics to simplify the world for the sake of measuring it and through that lens examines why the modern shareholder-driven corporation so often makes decisions that are bad for the world and even itself in the long run.
https://earnestnessisunderrated.substack.com/p/book-review-the-unaccountability
The problems with academic economics goes deeper that just relying on things they can measure. The assumption that the things they can measure are indeed measurable is mostly false.
Highly recommend
"The Physics of Capitalism"
https://monthlyreview.org/9781685900915/
Excellent piece, Luke. Seems relevant to me also (with the necessary caveats about generalizing in this way) that political economy as a discipline is much more left wing than political science or economics.
It’s interesting to see an episode from the dawn of neoliberalism. It didn't spring out fully formed from Milton Friedman’s head.
I think that realizing political science and economics are intrinsically linked was a critical moment for me on my political journey. In my early 20s before I had formed my own political opinions I read a book where a guy would take a road trip though the Deep South to learn about racism and while he was an earnest and smart guy, it kind of couldn’t be more than superficial because politics divorced from economics will only get you so far. I’m really grateful for books like “The open veins of Latin America” and “How Europe underdeveloped Africa” because they were great gateways into Marxist economics if you’re coming to politics from a social justice perspective.
I haven’t really used social media in years, but I remember a pretty vocal outcry against people that said you need to “read theory” and I think that stems from cutting politics and economics as well. Which was sad, because you can’t just read it, you need to talk about it to fucking understand it!