Re: Sweden -- A few reactions on the N.Y. Times article

[Trond Andresen <trond.andresen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 16:42 12.08.98 -0600, Sven R. Larsson wrote:

>First of all, let me say that as I read the NYT article I got a feeling o f
>hopelessness......
>.....One would hope that foreign media were sensible enough to
>start asking the right questions at some point. But the NYT article gave  no
>reason to hope for this....

I argue below that there is no reason to expect anything good from the big
mainstream media. One should be completely without illusions in this matter.
I base this mainly on Norwegian and Australian experience.

>....
>The problem is not that the very small minority of dedicated libertarians
>outrun all competition for the salaried grad student positions at IIES. The
>problem is that mainstream economics unintendedly can open for
>libertarianism as a moral conclusion in the minds of students.
>Irresponsible professors can easily give students the impression that
>libertarian solutions are the only reasonable solutions to economic
>problems.
>...
>.......Students of economics refer
>to the media debate...
>... if the media consumer is drenched with
>"Spending money, like eating people, is wrong" (although this time they'r e
>dead serious about it...) from the morning paper to the late night TV news,
>seven days a week, then she has to have one hell of an integrity not to
>become a libertarian while taking economics.

The monopoly of neoclassical economics is IMO due to both the economics
profession and the media, as Sven suggests (and of course also the
capitalist class and their influence). But I think that the importance
of the media is underestimated. The journalists in the big media  today
belong economically and attitude-wise to the upper 30% in society. They may
be liberal or "progressive" on issues like homosexuality, drugs, feminism,
multiculturalism, anti-racism, human rights, experimental arts, alternative
lifestyles, and they may have a soft heart and  give roundly to catastrophe
relief action like in today's Sudan.
But the overwhelming majority of them are either die-hard right-wingers on
economics issues, or they simply regurgitate what they are fed from the
neoclassical pundits. They are pro-privatisation, pro-austerity, anti-union,
anti-gvt. They have no personal reason to worry about economics, since
they are paid much more than the average wage earner. Their worries are
whether to buy a BMW or an Audi, and should I sell my stocks in company XX
now or later. They are furthermore more or less corrupted by self-importance
due to their more or less exalted position.

I refer to some thoughts based on 15 years of part-time journalism
experience here in Norway. They concern the (underestimated) importance of
media, and the mechanics of media under capitalism. See

http://www.itk.ntnu.no/ansatte/Andresen_Trond/articles/media-dynamics.html

I will also send this to pkt in a separate message, for those (few?) who do not access the Web.

Trond Andresen