Synopses & Reviews
From the editor and magazine that started and named the Occupy Wall Street movement,
Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics is an articulation of what could be the next steps in rethinking and remaking our world that challenges and debunks many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics and brings to light a more ecological model.
Meme Wars aims to accelerate the shift into this new paradigm that takes into account psychonomics, bionomics, and other aspects of our physical and mental environment that are often left out in discussions of economics.
Like Adbusters, the book will be image heavy and full-color throughout. Lasn calls it "a textbook for the future" that provides the building blocks, in texts and visuals, for a new way of looking at and changing our world. Through an examination of alternative economies, Lasn hopes to spur students to become "barefoot economists" and to see that a humanization of economics is possible. Meme Wars will include contributions from Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Samuelson, George Akerlof, Lourdes Benería, Julie Matthaei, Manfred Max-Neef, David Orrell, Paul Gilding, Mathis Wackernagel and the father of ecological economics Herman Daly, among others.
Based on ideas that were presented in a special issue of Adbusters entitled "Thought Control in Economics: Beyond the Growth Paradigm / An Activist Toolkit," Meme Wars will help move forward the Occupy Wall Street movement.
About the Author
KALLE LASN is an internationally known, award-winning documentarian. He is publisher of
Adbusters magazine and founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation and Powershift Advertising Agency. Lasn has dedicated himself to launching social marketing campaigns with
Adbusters such as Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week, and to fighting legal battles for the right to access the public airwaves, primarily through the anticapitalist tactic of culture jamming. Lasn, along with Adbusters senior editor Micah White and
Adbusters' 90,000-strong global network of activists were the instigators of the first #OccupyWallStreet event on September 17, 2011.
ADBUSTERS is a not-for-profit, reader-supported, advertising-free, 70,000-circulation magazine that lays bare anticapitalist, pro-environment concerns through incisive philosophical essays, activist commentary, and advertising spoofs. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters past and present contributors include Slajov Zizek, David Graeber, Simon Critchley, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Matt Taibbi, Bill McKibben, Douglas Rushkoff, Jonathan Cook, and Chris Hedges.
For my birthday my best friend, who knows me scarily well, sent me Kalle Lasn & Adbuster’s new book, Meme Wars: the Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics, which is nothing less than a courageous, imaginative, wildly brilliant attack on the fundamental stupidity of our economic model. It offers a comprehensive challenge to the growth based economic agenda, and brings into the conversation all the people currently kept out of it.
A real gleaming ray of light to emanate from Meme Wars is the collective excoriation of Milton Friedman and the “free market” ideology. For years this new religion, the religion of endless profit and endless growth has been replacing any idea it comes across, confusing the world and essentially promoting globally forgetting that other models exist. The unanimous rejection of so destructive a philosophy sets this book, and all the economists and thinkers within, solidly in the realm of legitimate policy proposals. There is no pandering to the powers that be, no apologetics and plea bargaining–these people mean business.
The consensus that climate crisis and economic crisis go hand in hand is so relevant, I am ready to send copies of this book to everyone involved in the “fiscal cliff” talks with the note, “It’s the model, Stupid”. In Chapter IV: Meet the Mavericks, an illuminating essay is offered by Brian Davey, an ecological economist. He begins by writing about the Beyond Growth Conference, held in Germany. Of the conference, and the current climate of those engaged in these discussions he says,
“A few years ago there was difficulty bridging the division between the ecological and environmental politics of the greens and the social and other focuses taken up by
the left and trade unions. But ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transaction to Aid Citizens)
who embrace broad diversity, have been able to lift partisan actors above the fray. While there are still
divisions, they’re handled non-acrimoniously and, as a major union there said, it’s clear there is now
an explicit consensus that social and ecological problems must be worked on together.”
Within these discussions, we are offered a look at indigenous perspectives on what wealth and happiness mean. Overwhelmingly, the idea of the developing world wanting to inhabit a life-style like the industrialized nations is proven false. Davey goes on to discuss Bolivia’s withdrawal from the 2010 Copenhagen climate summit, because of the refusal of powerful nations to discuss the rights of the earth. Broaching the subjects of decolonization and Pachamama, the unity of all phenomena in the universe, and our inherent immortality to the table are nothing shy of boldly radical. Allowing for plurality of ideas, and a true belief that the age of Growth and Fossil Fuel are over is a soundly sustainable way to approach the looming question: What next?
Another maverick economist introduced in Chapter IV is Tarek El Diwany, a London-based financier and forward thinker. Have you ever heard the term, “Islamic Economics”? I hadn’t either. His premise is based on the sin shared by all Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity): Making money on lending money is criminal. Hence, the enshrinement in much of European history of usury as a crime. What El Diwany ended up doing was leaving his early career in the world of high finance and big profits, to work in Islamic financing, ie, interest free financing. His company Zest Advisory, LLP, helped set up an Islamic housing cooperative, in which the liability or success of buying a home is shared cooperatively between the financiers, and those wishing to buy a house. There is no predatory lending, no betting on whether or not the home buyer is going to bust, offering you the chance to sell his debt to another financial interest.
Chapter I: Battle for the Soul of Economics ought to be required reading in any high school or university history class. When do we ever discuss the philosophies of wealth, debt, ownership and class? The conversation here is rich in perspective, and very articulately examined by Michael Hudson, who in five and half pages takes the reader on a journey through economic history, from Hammurabi to the present. He deftly undoes the neo-liberal assertion that planned economies are authoritarian by stating the obvious.
“Every economy is planned. This traditionally has been the function of government. Relinquishing
this role under the slogan of ‘free markets’ leaves it in the hands of banks…
The idea of an independent central bank being ‘the hallmark of democracy’ is a euphemism
for relinquishing the most important policy decision–the ability to create money and credit–to the financial sector”.
The final topic I will touch on here (I am only half way through this tome, and will fill you in later on what lies ahead) is Chapter II: Paradigm Lost.
This is getting into the beans of it, as my British friends say. What is wealth? What is debt? Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef pens a marvelous paper on the subject. His thesis is simple, in a complicated way: Wealth is physical, debt is imaginary. He argues quite well that “the monetary intellectual system is an integral part of modern society’s worldview”. Before the advent of the Industrial Revolution and our addiction to Fossil Fuels, there was no such thing as Growth. It just didn’t happen. His most prescient point is that while wealth is physical, and can only grow so much, debt, which is imaginary, can grow into infinity.
“Since wealth cannot continually grow as fast as debt, the one-to-one
relation between the two will at one point be broken–ie, there must be some
repudiation or cancellation of debt.”
Let’s leave it there, shall we? I’d say this is perfectly full circle. The idea of debt cancellation is how this book really begins, and it’s in perfect timing with Occupy’s new campaign: Rolling Jubilee. In this growing plurality of ideas, we are working towards a Great Remembering.
Courtesy of Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Requiem music soars, capitalism’s grand finale. Death by self-inflicted economicus extremis. Undead enemies, wounded zombies, ghouls, ghosts, vampires seek revenge, want blood.
For over two centuries capitalists have been dissecting and replacing body parts on Adam Smith’s theories, patching together a monster Frankenstein Economics. Once it worked for the whole economy. But now the monster is on a rampage, destroying itself, failing the nation that gave it life.
American capitalists are now self-destructing, killing American capitalism, our democracy, and next, the world economy. Cue music: “Thriller:”
Cue music. An ominous fog. The beat of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” consumes the cemetery of economic horrors: “Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood.” Crypts in the Adam Smith mausoleum are readied to hold the failing parts of a dying Frankenstein Economics, to hold the doomed parts for all eternity.
Yes American capitalists are now self-destructing, killing American capitalism, our democracy, and next, the world economy. Listen to the beat of “Thriller:”
“They’re out to get you … No one’s gonna save you … from the beast about to strike … The foulest stench’s in the air … The funk of forty thousand years … Grizzly ghouls from every tomb … are closing in to seal your doom … You fight to stay alive … Your body starts to shiver … No mere mortal can resist … the evil of the Thriller.”
For many Americans. Halloween is a holiday of great fun. My favorite. And probably why Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was on my mind when reviewing the new Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson book, “Why Nations Fail.” They see a pattern repeating through history. Nations grow. Wealth concentrates at the top. The elite take steps to protect their wealth. And by closing the very doors that helped them get to the top, nations fail.
This Halloween the same pattern is accelerating with America’s election drama. This time, however, the door may close on super-rich capitalists. They may lose their battle to control our nation. Lose control. Here are seven other signs of this pattern:
1. Capitalists losing control of the Invisible Hand
Adam Smith’s capitalism believed the Invisible Hand would benefit everyone, the entire economy. But capitalists now control Smith’s Invisible Hand, using it to protect their personal wealth, gain more power. Traditional economists keep the pattern alive, like “True Blood” vampire squids surviving from ancient times, still haunting Wall Street.
A pattern reversal emerges in a new book, “Meme Wars: Creative Destruction of Neo-Classical Economics,” edited by Kalle Lasn, publisher of Adbusters. In one column Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz warns that economists in banks, government, universities and the Fed are trapped in capitalism’s Frankenstein Economics mythology. Trapped because myths like efficient market theory and supply-demand are easier to teach than complex environmental issues and long-term population growth. So most economists pretend that the myths work, inventing reasons why.
Moreover, lacking its own scientific basis, today’s Frankenstein Economics uses computer technology, math and physics, while ignoring the latest environmental and behavioral-economics research. As a result, economists are unable to analyze complex global issues, focusing instead on justifying the self-serving behavior of individual capitalists maximizing profits in a competitive marketplace.
2. Frankenstein Economics has a conservative political bias
Stiglitz warns that Frankenstein Economics has a political bias in conservative issues and the profits of corporation shareholders. Economics taught at Harvard University, for example, uses a textbook written by a former member of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors that pushes “a particular ideological view that markets work perfectly.”
Capitalists also view environmental issues as liberal. Teaching any economics courses that are politically biased with a conservative or progressive agenda is dangerous to America’s future, as Acemoglu and Robinson suggest. Future leaders will just keep making decisions on broader public policies, relying on a conservative version of Adam Smith’s theories, failing America as a whole. Time to bury this corpse.
3. Frankenstein Economics relies on disasters, wars, famine, pandemics
Flash forward: The planet is incapable of feeding the 10 billion people projected on Earth by 2050, says Jeremy Grantham, whose firm manages $100 billion. But most economists working for capitalists today ignore the warnings, trapped in their denial bubble with men like the Fed’s Ben Bernanke. Time to reread “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”
Alternatively, it appears that only a disaster of epic proportions, like a global pandemic, will penetrate today’s capitalist mind-set and awaken their conscience.
4. Capitalists misleading us with the Perpetual Growth myth
Capitalism’s Frankenstein Economics is failing our nation with its core myth of Perpetual Growth, which assumes infinite resources with infinite opportunities for growth, profits, income, and wealth. Ad infinitum.
Though rich and brilliant, American capitalists have a childlike, irrational conviction that they can indefinitely mine, fish, dump, produce, grow and extract resources from the planet’s limited supply, without ever paying a steep price or planning for the day the planet’s resources are exhausted.
5. Frankenstein capitalists have short-term-thinking brains
Billionaires, corporate CEO, Wall Street bankers and other capitalists focus narrowly on closing stock prices, quarterly earnings, annual bonuses. Most are alpha-males, aggressive short-term thinkers, while America’s next generation of leaders must have “a historical perspective,” says Grantham. But unfortunately we get as leaders “an army of left-brained immediate doers” which “guarantees” they “will always miss” the next big one.
Stiglitz is right, America must teach an economics that is politically neutral and embraces new environmental and behavioral-economics research.
6. Frankenstein Economics reflects an extreme capitalist ideology
Today, the ideology of philosopher Ayn Rand, in works like “Atlas Shrugged,” is the core of Frankenstein Economics, has replaced Adam Smith’s original ideas as Rand’s extreme ideas have become the conservative political agenda: “When I say ‘capitalism,’ I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism;” The only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible,” leaving “every man free.”
Today Rand’s ideology is not only locked into conservative politics and capitalist economics, it is now embedded in a conspiracy of a super-rich elite and our politicians, a dangerous repetition of the historical pattern Acemoglu and Robinson warn is closing the door to America’s future to protect wealth accumulated in the past.
7. Frankenstein Capitalism losing to China’s new State Capitalism
There is now a big elephant in the room: China’s is planning its future using a hybrid capitalism, while American capitalists are retreating to the past. China’s resources and people dwarf America’s: China will add 300 thousand in the next generation, topping 1.4 billion. America will grow to just 400 million. China’s economy will exceed America’s in a few years. And by 2040 China’s GDP will be 40% of the world versus America’s 14%.
All this gets even scarier when you realize China’s economy is growing faster than ours thanks to the Chinese communist party version, state-planned capitalism.
One final note: In the spirit of Halloween, let’s remember that China now has such a huge stockpile of dollar reserves, over one trillion, they could easily buy a “Thriller” mausoleum from our capitalists, and still have a lot remaining.
Market Shadows (http://s.tt/1rjnZ)