|
Edited on Sun Jul-13-08 10:18 PM by RainDog
I don't know why this sort of labeling has taken hold here this weekend. Social darwinism, etc. was current in the late Victorian and early 20th century.
However, capitalists who gained power during Reagan, Thatcher, etc. were hugely influenced by Milton Friedman's work and his idea that govt. intervention was worse than non-intervention (even tho he started out supporting the New Deal.) It's hypocrisy, not a belief in social or economic darwinism, that makes their ideas such a joke... get corporations off of welfare, that sort of thing, since they get bailed out all the time - corporations get too big to be allowed to fail b/c of the consequences.
Another big deal for economics was game theory. Again, to talk about economic darwinism at this time sounds archaic - it sounds like someone who hasn't taken the time to at least look at what economists say, but rather simply parrots what someone else has said because it sounds like what you see.
Game Theory was imp. for economics and for govt in general because of the Nash equilibrium. This is that idea that ppl will always be egotistical and always try to only do what is best for themselves. The theory, when first tested, was rebuked by those who were the first subjects -- secretaries -- because they helped each other. Rather than deciding the theory was flawed, they decided the secretaries were flawed. But it's so much easier to set up an idea when it can be presented in such black and white terms. This is diff. than economic darwinism b/c it is an idea that ALL benefit by this selfishness.... even tho that's not true. There is a difference, however.
As someone else has mentioned here, in primate studies, as well, ppl have seen, via DNA tests, that ppl will share with others but they will share most with others with whom they feel affliated - either by dna or group -- it gets looser the further away from any sort of identification b/t two parties that you go. Maybe those secretaries felt affliated with one another and felt that their success was strengthened by the success of their fellow secretaries, in other words.
Karl Popper has been hugely important in the last century in all areas of thought - including economics. He rejected fundamentalism of any form (marxist, christian, economic) because this idea of a predetermined course of history was the basis for all totalitarianisms. I think he's so right on that one. Fatalists of any kind are enemies of freedom.
Hayek was more imp. to economic theory. Hayek and Friedman, etc. are what would be called classical liberals - liberals who believed that free markets (those which did not exclude mere working people and only include aristocrats - this was again in the era of Queen Victoria, Disraeli, etc.) as a way to overcome totalitarianism and even aristocratic claims to this or that exception.
Joseph Stiglitz is an imp. economist now. He won a Nobel Prize a few years ago and he calls Friedman's approach (neoclassical economics) a form of fundamentalism. Stiglitz is famous for noting that Friedman's view (that markets are self-correcting and the most efficient) is wrong. Stiglitz has major issues with globalization b/c of this view that markets do not produce their own best outcomes when left to the selfish to work for the selfish - to put it simply - Stiglitz says that the "invisible hand" that corrects the market is a myth.
He's very influential - but of course those in power right now believe they create their own reality so they can continue to claim "free markets" are free and the best way to go, when Stiglitz (and others) say that this is demonstrably not so.
That's where the current thought is in economics for the lay person like you or me, not social/economic darwinism.Those labels/ideas really aren't what ppl are working to overcome now. People are working to overcome neoclassical liberal beliefs that have, through every president or PM who has sworn by them, resulted in a worse economic situation for a majority of citizens in that nation.
|