Saturday, April 16, 2016

Reuters — Pope Francis and Bernie Sanders meet to discuss need for morality in world economy


Expect to be hearing a lot more talk about "the moral economy."

Raw Story
Pope Francis and Bernie Sanders meet to discuss need for morality in world economy
Reuters

9 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Most probably think survival of the fittest is moral....

Peter Pan said...

Wouldn't that be survival of the jewish... in Sanders's case.

Matt Franko said...

I don't think he is Jewish Bob...

The problem isn't "the Jews!" that's scapegoating or racism something...it's like the lefties who think it is a "neoliberal conspiracy!" Some people think it's a "Jewish conspiracy!"... These are all nut-job conspiracy theory type people...

A big problem is rather inappropriate teaching of OT (aka Hebrew Scriptures) doctrines throughout Christendom....

Peter Pan said...

Your sarcasm detector may need batteries... just saying.

Six said...

Neoliberalism isn't a conspiracy theory. The practitioners don't try to hide it.

Matt Franko said...

Well you don't refute them by simply accusing them of operating a conspiracy.... Which they are not....

Tom Hickey said...

"Conspiracy" implies group intent. "Neoliberalism" is not based on a conspiratorial group, nor was its rise due chiefly to a conspiratorial group like the Mont Peleriin Society or the Chicago Schoo.

Rather, it is made up of a web of conspiracies that share a common ideology based on free market fundamentalism as a necessary condition for "democracy," and sufficient to ensure "democracy" if carried out fully.

Neoliberalism is a political theory based on an economic theory. It views the basis of liberalism as economic liberalism. If economic liberalism is put in place, then political and social liberalism follow. It goes not to assume the ideological claim that that this natural and deviations from it are unnatural. So governments that stand in the way of instituting neoliberalism as the governing political system are standing in the way of humans' natural predilection for for "freedom," understood in Isaiah Berlin's sense of negative liberty, that is, freedom from constraint. This is the basis of neoconservatism and the justification for democratizing the world through regime change as necessary. It is further based on American exceptionalism as the confluence of religious, political, and economic ideology.

It is "conspiratorial" to the degree that powerful groups align in promoting it through propaganda and informational warfare, including control of an educational process, as is currently underway in the US, for instance.

Conspiratorial control is also a key element in hybrid warfare. Broadly speaking, hybrid warfare involves weaponizing all aspects of life in the interest of achieving a geopolitical objective in an age in which the major powers do not wish to confront each other directly and risk nuclear conflict. This is the strategy that is dominant militarily now, although the US is also hellbent on achieving first strike capability.

Matt Franko said...

So the round earth people simply out argued the flat earth people?

No geometry involved?

I dont think so....

Tom Hickey said...

No geometry involved?

Clear parallel here historically between the rise of science and liberalism.

The argument then was science vs religious dogma. Science won, not because it was "right" but because it was very successful. Most people couldn't do the math, but they could see the results. BTW, the transition has lasted centuries and is still going on. There's a huge number of people on the planet, even in developed countries, that rejected science in favor of religious dogma.

Liberals have held since the 18th century that just as science prevailed over religious dogma, so too will liberalism in society, politics and economics replace the old order because like science it is a true model rather than a mythological one. This is, indeed, the project of neoclassical economics, which is supposed to provide the mathematical basis.

This is a major debate in which we are now involved here at MNE. Physics has pretty well honed its model. Economics hasn't based on outcomes, but some represent it as having done so. Neoliberalism is based on the latter POV. The reason that neoliberalism is claimed to be TINA is that it is "scientific," while other views are not. That's the implication of "Where's your model?"

This is also at the center of the debate between neoliberalism and "the moral economy." Neoliberalism is based on a "just world" ideology where everyone gets what they deserve based on social Darwinism. "The moral economy" is based on a concept of human dignity inherited from religion that contradicts the "natural" morality of "survival of the fittest" in a world of scarcity.