This is what ‘independence’ of a central bank means. Taking the blame for unpopular decisions. So that…
This is what ‘independence’ of a central bank means. Taking the blame for unpopular decisions. So that politicians don’t. Stupid decisions too, because the monetarism that invented central banks is stupid. It’s a key plank of free market politics. /1
https://t.co/jMNbhUhfIE
If you read the history of monetarism, the first thing that will strike you is that the people who invented it were rabid free market zealots. Like Milton Friedman. If that doesn’t tell you it’s an entirely political invention, slap yourself in the face a few times. /2
Free-marketers love monetarism because it allows them their fantasy of an ‘economy’ run with minimal State intervention. They hate the State. They think money supply can be the ‘invisible hand’ their whole set of crazy ideas lacks. /3
Believing the market will self-regulate, provided you control money supply in just the right way. Politicians were seduced by this because it means they were absolved of responsibility for ‘economic’ downturns, because hey, the central bank is ‘independent’. They didn’t do it. /4
They’ll sack Philip Lowe before the end of the year, after he’s done all of the unpopular things they don’t want to be associated with. How’s that for independence. A double win, he’ll do the dirty work, then became the sacrificial lamb to absorb public anger. /5
And I have little sympathy, because again monetarism is destructive bullshit that destroys societies. Journalism doesn’t even ask the question whether monetarism, the reason for the whole central bank apparatus, has failed miserably. /6
Economies (which don’t exist) crash regularly, using this same set of ideas. If you did something in any other walk of life that was an abject failure, over and over, questions would be asked. It shows the deep propaganda the entire ‘economy’ malarkey is. /7
The economy was a political invention, a replacement for society that allowed conservatives to do politics, while pretending to be doing ‘objective’ economics. You might have noticed governments can do nothing useful for anybody who isn’t wealthy and powerful, in an economy. /8
That’s not an accident, that’s why it was invented. Every law of the economy forbids doing anything that helps the less powerful. It’s feudalism, back and disguised in the loon ideas of modern equilibrium economics. /9
Ideas that say societies reach a natural and optimal equilibrium, provided you don’t regulate them. To let the market rip into every tiny corner of our lives. Except there is no market, the ideas about how humans act socially that inform this theory are wrong. /10
Outrageously, almost hilariously wrong, except destruction of societies isn’t funny. The idea that we all act as independent individuals, maximising what’s best for ourselves, provided government regulation doesn’t get in the way. Humans always act socially, not individually. /11
ALWAYS. Even when acting in ‘individualistic’ ways, we’re performing for our chosen group, of fellow individualists. It’s a club, a team. Brownstone Institutes, that sort of group. That rail against rules even in pandemics, allowing unfettered infection. /12
Often people who grew up privileged, attributing their prosperity to their own ability and hard work, and accusing everybody else of being too lazy to be rich, like them. Some of them actually believe this rubbish, because their lives are so socially removed from ours. /13
They play the same social games as the rest of us, because that’s all society is. Societies act socially, how hard is that to understand? Never economically. Economics is just one team, a Premier League team, while most of us are permanently relegated to the minor leagues. /14
None of this is an analogy. Football leagues are the same social process as the economy. All social processes are. We jostle for hierarchy and status by conforming with the rituals of our particular team. Sports are so popular because that’s how social groups operate. /15
You did it at school and it continues into adult life. Read Linkedin for a bit if you can bear it, watch that jostle going on every day. ‘I’m pleased to share’ that I’ve gone up a few more rungs on my particular team ladder. The economy folk are clever, misdirecting us. /16
Forcing us into ‘jobs’ at the behest of employers or ‘business’. And then starting the same social comparison and hierarchical status games all over again, inside those jobs. Meaning society as a whole loses any sense of collective direction in doing anything. /17
Except protecting jobs. That’s why we ditched public health measures, so we could all go back to our bloody jobs. Making rubber ducks, while millions die. The economy did all of this, the great swindle. It’s Middle Age feudalism, not an analogy. In disguise. /18
Have Tweeted before that from the 1950s onwards, this is how old elites took back the reins, after the world wars and Spanish Flu devastated their grip on societies. They invented an ‘economy’, to bring back the feudalism they thrived under. Under cover of modern economics. /19
That’s why we don’t fight pandemics, or climate change. It’s not capitalism, or greed, or even ‘neoliberalism’. It’s feudalism, history’s dominant social and cultural form. Feudalism is the social framework of comparison, hierarchy and status. All societies are that. Always. /end