As the title of my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale – indicates, I am interested in both economics and patterned behaviour within groups and the way groups erect edifices (such as, denial) to defend positions.
I am also interested in the way groups use language. In an upcoming edition of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, I have an article written with Dr Louisa Connors entitled – Framing Modern Monetary Theory, which discusses this topic. Framing and language is a tool that reinforces Groupthink and allows group (organisations) to engage in denial even though the facts convey a different message. A 2015 analysis of World Bank Annual Reports from 1946 to 2012 is illustrative of the way in which framing, grammar and word usage can be used to clothe reality. The analysis published by the Stanford Literary Lab – Bankspeak: The Language of World Bank Reports, 1946–2012 – documents the shift in language by the World Bank between the first two decades of Annual Reports to the second two decades. They show how the Bank shifts from a language that is readily understood and considers a concrete world and offers very little prescriptive input to a narrative that becomes so opaque and filled with financial buzz words that comprehension is lost. They document the emergence of what they refer to as “Bankspeak”. Groupthink requires a certain language to reinforce the increasingly unsustainable reality that the group lives within. That is the role of the World Bankspeak! The Literary Lab analysis is worth reading because it provides a coherent analysis of the way words and sentence structures (grammar) are manipulated to shift focus, allay concern and basically, undermine accountability mechanisms that were established….Bill Mitchell – billy blog
World Bankspeak – how to hide the failure of a mission!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
"We also used to understand that the jobless state was the result of a systemic failure "
ReplyDeleteEvidence please?
The full sentence is "We also used to understand that the jobless state was the result of a systemic failure to produce enough jobs." What's your problem with that? You need evidence?
ReplyDeleteThere are two views. Joblessness (failure of labor market, glut of labor) is the result of either too few jobs, or failure of prices to adjust, that is, failure of workers to lower their bids.
ReplyDeleteThe General Theory explained about why this is not about price adjustment, as neoclassical economists held, but rather too few jobs.
We never understood it that way...
ReplyDeletePeople think it's a stochastic process...
Maybe "we" did here:
ReplyDelete'"Why do you stand there idle all day?" he asked "Because no one hires us" they say' Mat 20:7
But I'm sure that is not what Bill is talking about... Bill still believes in the stochastic "business cycle!", etc...
This is all a justification for continued belief in the "neo liberal conspiracy!" ...