{"id":14263,"date":"2015-11-10T07:57:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T12:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14263"},"modified":"2015-11-10T07:57:43","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T12:57:43","slug":"credo-economics-is-a-belief-system-and-we-are-ruled-by-fundamentalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14263","title":{"rendered":"‘Credo’: economics is a belief system – and we are ruled by fundamentalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Credo’: economics is a belief system – and we are ruled by fundamentalists<\/a><\/h3>\n

Economics is much more than the study of money, writes Paul Mobbs. It is a belief system, and in its ‘mainstream’ incarnation, one that serves a very useful purpose – for those that reap the benefits. But as Brian Davey shows in his insightful new book, it’s letting the rest of us down: failing to deliver human wellbeing, while driving ecological calamity.<\/p>\n

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It is the gap between physical reality and ‘supernatural’ belief, such as orthodox economists’ rejection of ecological limits, which is both driving today’s ecological crisis and preventing politicians from implementing effective solutions.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Brian Davey’s new book,\u00a0Credo: Economic Beliefs in a World in Crisis<\/em><\/a>, is an analysis of economic theory as if it were a system of religious belief.<\/p>\n

It’s a timely book. The simplistic, perhaps ‘supernatural’ assumptions which underpin key parts of economic theory demand far more attention. It’s a debate we’ve failed to have as a society.<\/p>\n

However, while simple to state, this analysis also throws up a major problem for the ‘ecological view’ of the world. If economics is a belief system, how can we persuade the devotees of economics – in particular politicians – with rational arguments when their outlook is based upon a self-justifying ‘faith’ in materialism?<\/p>\n

In and of itself money is not ‘evil’. Money simply allows us to exchange goods more easily. As outlined in the more formally religious terms of\u00a0The Bible<\/em><\/a>, it is the\u00a0“love of money”<\/em>which is the\u00a0“root of all evil”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The pursuit of material wealth inevitably brings sorrow as we neglect the innate, non-material value of the people and living things around us – a point upon which many of the world’s other great religions tend to agree.<\/p>\n

What’s wrong with economics? The way people actually behave<\/strong><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Credo’: economics is a belief system – and we are ruled by fundamentalists Economics is much more than the study of money, writes Paul Mobbs. It is a belief system, and in its ‘mainstream’ incarnation, one that serves a very useful purpose – for those that reap the benefits. But as Brian Davey shows in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3212,10538,244,6294,10539,536],"class_list":["post-14263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-belief-system","tag-ecologist","tag-economics-2","tag-fundamentalism","tag-goods-exchange","tag-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14264,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14263\/revisions\/14264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}