Posted on 03/18/2009 3:39:44 PM PDT by all the best
Last weekend, Harvard sponsored a conference called (I am not making this up) "The Free Market Mindset: History, Psychology, and Consequences." Its purpose was to try to figure out why, since everyone knows the current crisis amounts to a failure of the market economy, the stupid rubes continue to believe in it. The promotional literature for the conference opened with That Quotation from Alan Greenspan — the one in which he suggested that there was, after all, a "flaw" in the free market he hadn't noticed before.
Well, that does it, then! If our Soviet commissar in charge of money and interest rates says the free market doesn't work, who are you to disagree?
The promotional material continues: If the current state of the U.S. economy makes clear that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's faith in free markets was misplaced, the question remains: what was it about free markets that proved — and still continues to prove — so alluring to economists, scholars, and policy-makers alike?
Because, of course, if there's one guiding principle behind the largest government in world history, it's free markets. Ahem.
This conference, we were told,
brings together leading scholars in law, economics, social psychology, and social cognition to present and discuss their research regarding the historical origins, psychological antecedents, and policy consequences of the free market mindset. Their work illustrates that the magic of the marketplace is partially an illusion based on faulty assumptions and outmoded approaches.
The speakers then spent the day, I am sure, laying out their own faulty assumptions and outmoded approaches, and studiously ignoring the Austrian School of economics.
In short, the conference was about this: Why do people still think the interaction of free individuals is a superior economic system to one directed by Harvard Ph.D.s like us?
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
So all the capitalists should just cutt off their support and endowments to cesspool-on-boston
Why doesn’t Harvard close shop and move their operation to North Korea?
BINGO!!! Stop feeding the beast that is trying to kill you.
We need to assemble a network of CONSERVATIVE colleges to combat this relentless onslaught from the left.
Awe jeez...
Ok PROFESSOR, here’s the straight skinny. We capitalists go out and make money to send our kids to school PAYING YOUR COMPENSATION package. Got it?
With out Capitalism you are homeless you idiot.
American Military University. Thats where I go to school and believe me I feel right at home there!
Why do all the stupid people come from, and teach in, Ivy League schools?
These college professors think of themselves as part of the Politburo. They think that they are among the elite. If we move to socialism they expect to be in charge and tell everyone else how to live.
My soon-to-be college student doesn’t have Harvard or any of the Ivies on his list for just that reason.
the Ivy League’s pre-occupation with its Marxist fantasies has done more damage to the WORLD than any other illusion ever.....
There’s hardly anyone on their list of participants who even pretends to be an economist (not that economists are all so worthy of respect, just look at Paul Krugman!!).
It’s overwhelmingly people from law, psychology, and sociology.... yeah, I’ll really trust this group to tell us about the future of free markets:
Confirmed participants include:
* Anne Alstott (Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law at Havard Law School),
* James Cavallero (Executive Director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School),
* Christine Desan (Professor of Law, Harvard Law School),
* Jon Hanson (Alfred Smart Professor of Law, Harvard Law School),
* Bernard E. Harcourt (Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and professor of political science, University of Chicago),
* Sheena Iyengar (Professor, Management Division, Columbia Business School),
* Douglas Kysar (Professor of Law, Yale University),
* Gillian Lester is the Sidley Austin Professor of Law at Havard Law School)
* Stephen Marglin (Walter S. Barker Chair in the Department of Economics, Harvard University),
* Jaime Napier (Ph.D student, Social Psychology, New York University),
* Ben Sachs (Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School),
* Juliet Schor (Professor of Sociology, Boston College),
* Barry Schwartz (Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College).
Getting paid for products or services is crazy!?! Okey dokey.
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