Crime Against Humanity: Pensée Unique in Economics, 5

Speaking of what I called rule over the environment, I mentioned how King Pensée Unique did not always enjoy its enviable position, and Werner tells us how in about twenty years it went from a minority position to the mainstream one: “this approach had succeeded in dominating its discipline at all leading universities in the world. Academics that did not adhere to it found it hard to make a career: obtaining jobs or moving up the ladder depended on publications in leading journals – which had been usurped by this particular school of thought. … A large number of prominent national and international bureaucrats, journalists, politicians and other ‘opinion−makers’ had either been trained in the discipline or had otherwise become its followers. As a result, the views proposed by it came to dominate public policy debate by the mid−1980s, permeating the discussion of issues affecting individuals, communities, companies, the nation and the international community. Proponents are often no longer aware that there could be alternative schools of thought. To them, neoclassical economics is synonymous with modern economics per se. Most economics programmes at universities consist entirely of neoclassical economics, and students can spend years studying for their degrees without becoming aware that they may have been studying just one particular branch, one of many schools of thought in the discipline of economics. The financial press cites neoclassical ideas on a daily basis and its followers have entered highest public office. Central bankers are among the first profession to have been closely associated with neoclassical economics. This was followed by financial journalists and civil servants. As a result, the tune of deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation is being played daily and offered almost as the panacea to many of the world’s ills. … Neoclassical economics turns out to be the one school of thought within the discipline of economics, indeed one of the very few intellectual disciplines in general, that rejects the inductive approach favoured by scientists, and prefers deductivism. It must be considered a unique phenomenon in the history of thought that the originally marginal and eccentric deductive approach to economics has today become the mainstream school of thought.”
Leaving aside inductivism and deductivism as labels I’ll explain shortly, indeed academic institutions and publications, media and publishing groups, political groups and social organisations in general do have operating costs; and as I said, if anyone has a price, now someone has the money…