Our speechless outrage demands a new language of the common good

[CHIMO]

There was a coterie of economists in the 50s in Chicago intensively working on a set of ideas that were widely regarded at the time as marginal. They had little influence on mainstream public debate for another 20 years, and their ideas didn't win votes for nearly 30. But the story is now familiar of how Friedrich Hayek and his associates produced the intellectual roadmap for both Thatcher and Reagan, and the notions cooked up in Chicago – such as efficient market hypothesis – have dominated political economy for the last 30 years. Hayek's legacy, which now lies in ruins all around us, is still brightly promoted, but its claims to fairness and freedom have been utterly discredited.

The institutions that so benefited from Hayek's legacy – in the financial sector – seem oblivious to the crisis of legitimacy they have stumbled into. That's because the public outrage they prompt has no language or intellectual framework to make sense of itself, or to shape a new settlement. But it's only a matter of time.

But don't look to economists to get us out of this hollow mould of neoliberal economics and its bastard child, managerialism – the cost-benefit analysis and value-added gibberish that has made most people's working lives a mockery of everything they know to value. Economics developed brilliant technical skills for monitoring and managing complex economies, but an interpretation that allied them to grossly crude understandings of human nature came to dominate.

We need to be looking to political philosophy. I'm as hazy on the subject as the next person, but in the beautifully concise explanations of American philosopher Michael Sandel, I see great insight into our current predicaments. If any political reckoning is on its way – patience is the key lesson of the Chicago school, such shifts can take a generation – then perhaps it might come from the philosophy department of Harvard.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/18/ethics-society-values-economy

[CHIMO]

1. Some Political Philosophy

Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on Capitalism, Healthcare, Latin American “Populism” and the “Farcical” Financial Crisis

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: You are even better than Fox News, which I usually watch. More amusing

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: No, what interests me is, for example, Paul—sorry, Paul Krugman said basically the same thing, which tells us a lot about how ideology works today. He said, what if we make a mental experiment, and all the leading bank people, managers and so on, were to know how it would end two years ago? He said, let’s not delude ourselves; there would have been no change. They would have acted in exactly the same way.

This brings me, as a psychoanalyst, into the play, because I think this makes us aware as to what extent our everyday dealing is controlled by what in psychoanalysis we call the mechanism of fetishist disavowal. “Je sais bien, mais quand même…” “I know very well, but…” You know, we can know very well the possible catastrophic consequences, but somehow you trust the market, you think things will somehow work out, and so on and so on. It’s absolutely crucial to analyze this, not only in economy, but generally. This is the focus of my work: how beliefs function today. What do we mean when we say that someone believes?

So that I don’t get lost, let me tell you a wonderful story, which is my favorite story. I quote it also in the book. You know Niels Bohr, Copenhagen, quantum physics guy. You know, once he was visited in his country house by a friend who saw above the entrance a horseshoe, you know, in Europe, the superstitious item allegedly preventing evil spirits to enter the house. And the friend, also a scientist, asked him, “But listen, do you really believe in this?” Niels Bohr said, “Of course not. I’m not an idiot. I’m a scientist.” Then the friend asked him, “But why do you have it there?” You know what Niels Borh answered? He said, “I don’t believe in it, but I have it there, horseshoe, because I was told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/15/slovenian_philosopher_slavoj_zizek_on_the
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2009/oct/video/dnB20091015a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=00:40:02