[WS:] This is what D&S tried to do for some time, no? I do think its circulation goes much further than rather narrow circles on the left. Not because it is a bad publication - in fact I found it to be an excellent popular pub on economic issues - but because of insufficient demand, which is inseparably linked to the fact that most people understand economy exclusively through the prism of small business.
This is, of course, not a sign of "stupidity" of any kind but a product of two factors: knee-jerk popular aversion to anything institutional, including government, which most American of all political persuasions from right to left share, and the pro-business propaganda that reinforces that aversion and views inspired by it.
Changing these attitudes is a much larger project than tiny left groups can handle, even if they have such a fine publicans as D&S on their disposal.
Wojtek
On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Chris Sturr <sturr at dollarsandsense.org>wrote:
> Wait a minute: people who either don't know what Keynesianism is, or who
> misread the word as "Kenyan," on a sign intended to encourage that
> misreading, are "morons"?
>
> If Wojtek is right that "99% of the population in this country would give
> similar answers" and "have zero understanding of macroeconomics," maybe
> it's
> not because they are "*incapable *of viewing economy from any but a small
> business perspective" (emphasis added), but because people on the left have
> such contempt ("morons"; "incapable") for them that they couldn't possibly
> regard them as worth organizing (which is what it would take to spread a
> left understanding of economics beyond 1%).
>
> (So: I agree with Matt's comment. I also found the video funny, but my
> first
> reaction was not that these people are morons, but that this is an
> organizing opportunity to talk to people about Keynes and left critiques of
> Keynes.)
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:11:38 -0400
> From: Matt <lbo4 at beyondzero.net>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Sane and really dumb
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Message-ID: <4CD17BAA.1070505 at beyondzero.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 11/3/2010 10:39 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> > But the fact of the matter is that 99% of the population in this country
> > would give similar answers. They have zero understanding of
> macroeconomics
> > - they are incapable of viewing economy from any but a small business
> > perspective - and if they heard the word "keynesian" they do not really
> know
> > what it means.
>
> Well of course. It is possible to graduate college and never have
> learned about Keynes and macro. It is kinda funny that people think
> this video - even if heavily edited a'la James O'Keefe - shows that the
> Sanity folks are haha so stupid.
>
> I guess Jordan should give up trying to explain since people continue to
> be shocked/smug/angry/jealous that the
> live-comedy-and-bad-pop-music-
> event wasn't a Very Serious Leftist
> Academic Conference in disguise.
>
>
> Matt
>
> --
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>
> --
> --
> Chris Sturr
> Co-editor, Dollars & Sense
> 29 Winter St.
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