im debating on facebook, with someone on the merits-demerits of free trade. this person thinks Anwar Shaikh ‘economist’ is the second comig, and last word on trade theory. my instinct is that he is a moron. im slowly trying to construct well reasoned arguments as to why this is so. has anyone come across this particular stuff before?
Believe it or not, Anwar Shaikh is teaching my macroeconomics class. He definitely isnt a moron, but I havent looked into his stuff on trade theory. He says we are going to touch on Austrian theory a bit in his class. His theory, however, seems to be that profits or more specifically ‘the profit motive’ is the cause of all economic ills.
Oh Boy!
That sounds just about right.
Profit =no
Healthcare is a right!!!
profit motive is the cause of all economic ills?
he definitely is a moron if that’s the case.
plain and simple socialist
Is he ‘controversial’ in the same way that Naomi Klein is?
I guess he’s a preacher then, because the only way economics can be better served than by profit motive is if everyone voluntarily sacrifices their own life for everyone elses. But, since we all know human nature, the next best thing is to agree to cooperate with others while we seek to satisfy ourselves. The belief he espouses is as old, deadly and delusional as every such economic revolution that’s killed millions upon millions of people. Since man is NOT going to voluntarily submit his every want to that of another, you’ll have to force him to. Sounds like a fun alternative to liberty, eh?
If man were angels, economics would be a non-issue. He presumes to solve the problem of economics by transforming the nature of man. God Almighty Himself has been trying this since the beginning of time and do you see the results? God is all-knowing, but he allows choice/liberty. Anwar Shaikh don’t know his anus from a hole in the ground, no one does when compared to an omniscient being. He ain’t gonna succeed in transforming man. He can only hope to enslave him.
Which is better, Savior Shaikh: Enslavement or Profit Motive?
P.S. I’m sure the only reason this man is well-known is because of his charisma. I assure you, if what you say about him is true, he IS a moron. Doesn’t matter how poetic his delivery is, it’s still just a fog of deadly mouth gas rolling out of his poisonous mind.
Take a look at these gems:
When I was in grad school at GMU, there was a fellow Econ student from Iran who used to extol a medieval mathematician/philosopher by the name ‘Farabi’ (sp?) - one of whose professed models was a way of loaning money without interest terms. I tried to explain that any type of devised fee on top of principle is just interest by another name - to no avail. No one can ignore the implicit rules of opportunity costs that makes a dollar today worth more than a promised dollar tomorrow. And the same goes for the profit motive - without which an incentive structure of entrepreneurship would cease (rendering Man to being no more than a gluttonous beast of immediate gratification and destructive barbarism).
would still be critical: how can we angelic sorts actually help humanity? A world of angels with Keynesian economics would instantly collaborate to produce this horror (quoted from Rothbard’s The Present State of Austrian Economics (pdf)):