Dec 1, 2021
“Supply and demand.” “It’s just Econ 101.” “Most
economists agree...” “There’s always trade offs.”
Over
and over, media and policymakers spew the same tired recitations
meant to convey the seemingly natural, immutable laws of economics.
"The economy," we’re told, is thriving when business owners and job
creators are making record profits, and failing when investments in
social programs have simply grown too high — and that’s the way it
is and will, and should, always be.
These
terms, phrases and sentiments are part of a lexicon of economic
euphemisms, cliches, and other forms of business-school speak
designed to blur class lines and convince us that our economic
system — entirely a result of policy choices largely designed to
further enrich the wealthy at any the expense of the broader
welfare — is a function of cold, hard science, with rules and
principles no more pliable than those of physics or
chemistry.
But
why should we be expected to just accept that a news report that
“the economy” is on the upswing means the average worker is doing
any better, when all evidence is to the contrary? Why should our
media’s economic so-called “experts” come from a pool of elite
economics departments beholden to corporate donors and right-wing
think tanks? And why must “the economy” be defined in terms of
whether the Dow is up or down, instead of whether people have food,
housing, healthcare, and job security?
On
this episode, part one of a two-part series, we examine the first
five of our ten most popular clichés, jargon, and rhetorical
thingamajigs that economists, economic reporters, and pundits use
to sanitize, obscure, and provide a thin gloss of Science-ism to
what is little more than power-flattering, cruel, racist, austerity
ideology.
Our
guest is writer Hadas Thier.