• stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net
    4·
    2 days ago

    Economics, as a science, has generally been used to measure and describe capitalist economies, since economics as a science has only existed as long as capitalism.

    Which is fine.

    Economics has had a bad habit of universalizing its descriptions of capitalist economies as if they were fundamental facts about human nature.

    Which is not fine.

    So, for example, economists talk about the “tragedy of the commons”, as if it was a law of nature that publicly owned resources are necessarily used to destruction by selfish individuals, and only private ownership enforced by law can prevent this destruction. When, in fact, publicly owned resources have been maintained by societies ever since society was a thing, the commons in England existed for thousands of years before capitalism was a gleam in Adam Smith’s eye, and the term itself was popularized by Garrett Hardin in 1968 as a justification for abolishing welfare and letting poor people starve.

    But hey, our colonial ancestors took millions and millions of acres of “unowned” land from native peoples, auctioned it off to private landowners, and turned the native people into slave labor to farm it, and isn’t it nice to tell ourselves that we’re using that land more efficiently and protecting it from overuse and mismanagement by privatizing it?

    I mean, look, if I said to you “making profit is the highest good, and it is morally right for me to use every legal method at my disposal to make as much profit as I can from you”, you’d say I was evil or insane.

    But if I said to you “making profit is the most important goal of my business, and it is morally right for me to use every legal method to make as much money as I can from customers” you’d probably nod and smile and agree.

    And that’s the corrupting influence of economics, which has confused efficiency and morality so greatly that it’s convinced us that capitalism is the most moral form of social organization because a capitalist economy is the most efficient form of economic organization. Neither of which is true.

    And this ties into fascism, and dictatorships, and Belgians in the Congo, and all sorts of monstrous human rights violations in the name of profit, because monstrous human rights violations naturally occur when you reduce human beings to commodities and tell yourself the highest form of morality lies in using those commodities as efficiently and profitably as you can.

    Economics is not exclusively used for fascism, sure, but it’s done more to promote fascism than any other single science I can think of.

    • EightBitBlood@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will

      Here’s a beautifully shot movie made by the female director Leni Riefenstahl.

      It’s all about Hitler and how the Nazis are great.

      There is no equivalent in economics.

      Now look at Tiktok. Twitter. Conservative news. All now readily full of actual fascist propaganda.

      There is no equivalent in economics.

      There are, unquestionably, many more threatening things in the world promoting Fascism that are not and have no ties to Economics.

      Economics is literally just the study of currency and trade, and how those two interact over time. There is nothing inherently evil about it. It can just be used to describe how evil fascists love currency and how they pursue controlling trade.

      Just because the Gospel of Judas was written in ancient Hebrew doesn’t mean ancient Hebrew is unchristian or evil. It’s just the language that documented unchristian ideas. The same is true about economics. It can absolutley describe how fascists control their people through the exploitation of currency and trade, but it literally has nothing to do with that. It’s just a scientific way to talk about it.

      If you want to tell me that Economics is primarily geared towards fascism, prove it. Show me the papers. Show me the authors. They don’t exist. Because it’s not fascist.

      Is measuring how many glass beads can be traded for water in Uganda fascist?

      Is measuring how much a carbon tax prevents corporations from polluting fascist?

      Is measuring unemployment fascist?

      Economics is just a tool. It is, in no way fascist. It’s like saying that Hindus are fascist for having right facing swastikas. Swastikas have meant good luck in their culture for millenia more than it’s meant anything in fascism. And likewise economics has been measuring things like the quality of copper decreasing under authoritarian rule for far longer than fascism has existed.

      It’s just a form of quantifying information related to trade and currency. That’s it.

      Trade and currency can and do exist across every human culture. Just because the exploitation of currency and trade is a big deal in fascism doesn’t mean the tools that measure that are fascist. They are just tools.

      So if you ignore how they can be used for good, fascists can and will use them against you. Just like they use movies and social media against you. Just like they use any tool against you. That does not make the tool fascist. Just the person wielding it.

      Also, you are likely unintentionally conflating neo-classical economics as the only form of economics. That’s one model out of thousands that prioritizes efficiency over things like public Ultility. And those are the only authors you quoted.

      Just because that model exists, doesn’t mean it’s the correct one that every society should live by. It’s just a single model developed to poorly measure and make decisions in a capitalist society. Like all other economic models before it, it will be replaced by something better. And very much already is.