shameless utada plugin

literally. word for word.

okay fucker. someones penetrated my library and stuck little leaflets in all of my econ textbooks with the following message:

We, the undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics and the students that you graduate, have perpetuated a gigantic fraud upon the world. You claim to work in a pure science of formula and law, but yours is a social science, with all the fragility and uncertainty that this entails. We accuse you of pretending to be what you are not. You hide in your offices, protected by your jargon, while in the real world forests vanish, species perish, human lives are ruined and lost. We accuse you of gross negligence in the management of our planetary household. You have known since its inception that your measure of economic progress, the Gross Domestic Product, is fundamentally flawed and incomplete, and yet you have allowed it to become a global standard, reported day by day in every form of media. We accuse you of recklessly supporting the illusion of progress at the expense of human and environmental health. You have done great harm, but your time is coming to its close. The revolution of economics has begun, as hopeful and determined as any in our history. We will have our clash of paradigms, we will have our moment of truth, and out of each will come a new economics – open, holistic, human scale. On campus after campus, we will chase you old goats out of power. Then, in the months and years that follow, we will begin the work of reprogramming the doomsday machine. Sign the manifesto at http://www.Barefooteconomics.Org

the most unusual thing ive learned in my polisci class, "the scientific study of war", is the strength of one theory explaining the origins of war: to misrepresent information and a failure to properly convey it. and what we have here is the establishment of some sort of passive war between the misinformed and the good. your argument becomes entirely diminished by your assumption that i entirely accept and practice neoclassical economic theory.

and its this type of wannabe underground-yeah-fight-for-humanity-anti-anything-remotely-conservative mentality that instigates conflict while contributing to ignorance. reading this manifesto is like reading a 14 year old marin high school kid's attempt at changing the world, because hes at a point in his life where hes been socially rejected so to make himself feel good, hes stuck leaflets into textbooks like hes some 80s anti-government punk, thinking that "spreading the word via low-tier communications" is fulfilling his purpose in life because it serves humanity.

oh im totally down for the first amendment. but when your own ignorance, failure to open mindedly study a foreign subject, and utter lack of confidence to directly communicate with another human that leads to these things becomes imposed on me, i have every reason to believe that you will contribute far less to humanity in your entire lifetime than i will in the 10 years after i graduate.

its ironic, economics is labeled the dismal science partly because of its pessimistic portrayal of the world. economists as a majority favor the use of specific forms of investment. in fact they side with those investing in renewable resources rather than increasing efforts to "find more oil". economists recognize the importance of investing in education in order to shrink wage disparities between the rich and poor. economists are the ones who provide politicians with information indicating employer wage discrimination by sex, race, or disability. so in all 3 of these situations we observe a means contributing to humanity. yet im being accused of recklessly supporting the illusion of progress at the expense of human and environmental health.

economists, like most natural and physical scientists, just tell it like it is. we find certain things in life that seem to have a relationship with certain problems, and use the exact same statistical methods as any natural and physical scientist to say "hey, this seems to be the cause of this." economists do not promote the investment of stocks in certain companies, nor do they promote a tax free environment. your ignorance has led to your automatic association of economists with businessmen with republicans with right wing american capitalism.

its funny, take a look at the latest cover of the magazine the economist, labeled "the world in 2006." if your historically informed enough, you may notice the odd choice by the editors to show seperate pictures of bush and blair thrusting one arm at a 45 degree angle, straight out in front of them, much similar to hitler. and if you want to do the world some good, do yourself a favor and read some of the articles inside. you may be surprised by how some of its writers slam europeans and americans alike.

in war, and life in general, there are various levels of depth of thinking. while this first level entails complaining about the worlds problems, and the next level involves determining its causes, those who utilize the system to come up with a solution lie on the superior plane of thinking. so lets think outside the box here. youve slipped pieces of non 100% recycled paper into maybe hundreds of economics textbooks. out of the hundreds of students who purchase these textbooks, how many do you think have scratched their heads and said, "hey you know what, my major is futile, this guy is right, im going to sign the manifesto, drop my major, and go help campaign for larouche and nader?" some good youve sure done.

quite frankly i hate people who complain a lot, without thinking of a solution. great, youre complaining. good job, weve acknowledged a problem here. now what? i dont know, lets just complain more and maybe out of constant laborious complaining the solution will just come out of nowhere. o whats that? you cant think of a solution? academic education? nahh, we dont need that to figure things out. its better and easier and requires less work if i just slip a piece of paper bitching and whining about how unfair life is to me.