PROLOGUE + INTRO (running time 3:06)

We all know there’s a connection between waste in one location and simultaneous starvation in another…don’t we? Nope! Mainstream economists don’t see any connection.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Herman Daly, a founder of Ecological Economics, author Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development and Ecological Economics Principles and Applications 

 

THE MARKET MODEL + SOME ASSUMPTIONS (running time 4:43)

This model is presented as if it is a mathematical proof of the efficiency of markets, proclaiming the “quantity demanded is equal to quantity supplied.” But “Demand with out money is prayer or something!” declares economist Max Wolff.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Nancy Holmstrom co-author Not for Sale: In Defense of Public Goods, and Stephen Marglin author The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community, and Richard Wolff democracyatwork.info

 

LABOR AS A COMMODITY (running time 4:06)

“Minimum wage laws are presented as causing unemployment…But as the economist Robert Pollin asserts, “There’s no guarantee that the wage set by supply and demand will be enough to survive on!”

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Robert Pollin author Contours of Descent and Back to Full Employment, and Richard McIntyre author Are Worker Rights Human Rights?, and Karl Polanyi author The Great Transformation, and Stephanie Luce author Fighting for a Living Wage 

 

TRADE & EXCHANGE (running time 5:09)

“By the World Bank’s criteria poverty is lessened because people make more wage income…but what does it matter if your wages are higher but you can’t drink the water!” exclaims historian Richard Smith.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Ha-Joon Change author Kicking Away the Ladder and 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, and Annie Leonard’sThe Story of Stuff Project 

 

SELFISH WISH + IGNORE POWER RELATIONS (running time 5:17)

Orthodox economists wish acting selfishly would be a good way to organize society (Greed is good!). But as economist Julie Nelson points out, “This leaves out people’s ethical dimensions, people’s social dimensions, inter-dependencies, and dependency.”

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Julie Nelson co-author Microeconomics in Context, and Scott Nova with Workers Rights Consortium, and Duncan Foley author Adam’s Fallacy 

 

CODA ON MARKETS (running time 1:21)

Now, let’s talk about how people who do nothing socially useful earn billions of dollars. “That’s a more interesting discussion don’t you think?” proposes economist Richard McIntyre.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: John Bellamy Foster author The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth and with Fred Magdoff What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism

 

THE MODEL OF THE FIRM (running time 4:19)

“The Profit Maximizing Firm in a Competitive Market Model” presents firms competing with each other until…there are no profits!

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Steve Keen author Debunking Economics, and Manfred Max-Neef author Economics Unmasked  

 

CAPITAL OPPORTUNITY (running time 3:39)

Economist Susan Feiner asks, “Why would someone go to all the trouble to make something (build a factory, buy raw materials, hire workers, etc.) to make the same amount you could have made if you’d just stuck your money in a risk free account somewhere? It’s an absurdity on the face of it.”

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Susan Feiner author Liberating Economics: Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work and Globalization, and Steve Keen Debunking Economics 

 

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY (running time 6:22)

In the 1970s, economist David Kotz tells us, mainstream economics textbooks taught that although capitalism is the best economic system, it has many problems…but not anymore…the tendency toward monopoly, inequality, and environmental destruction, was by the 1980s minimized or ignored in both the textbooks and public policy…

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Doug Henwood author Wall Street: How it Works and for Whom, and Raj Patel author The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Starved 

 

CODA ON MARKETS & FIRMS (running time 1:47)

Sociologist Costas Panayotakis notes, “Externalities (when your economic activity imposes costs on others) are not rare, they are the political successes of the economically powerful!”

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Costas Panayotakis author Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy

 

MACROECONOMICS (running time 3:57)

“Keynes has been co-opted,” states economist Stephen Marglin.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Robert Pollin Contours of Descent and Back to Full Employment, and Steve Keen Debunking Economics, and L. Randall Wray author Modern Money Theory

 

THE VALUE OF MONEY (running time 4:05)

A government like the U.S. can never run out of money,” economist Randall Wray states.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Randall Wray Modern Money Theory, and Stephanie Kelton author The Deficit Myth

 

PRODUCTIVITY MEANS (running time 4:46)

“It’s as if we lived on Mars in an economy where everybody earned money by being productive!” declares Michael Hudson describing orthodox economics.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Michael Hudson author The Bubble and Beyond and Trade, Development and Foreign Debt and Super Imperialism, and Herman Daly, textbook Ecological Economics, and John Bellamy Foster The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth

 

WHAT DID WE LEARN (running time 3:36)

“Anything in life that spirals up, up, up, or spirals down, down, down, is dominated by reinforcing feedback. And the essence of that is that the more you have the more you get,” economist Kate Raworth tells us.

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Kate Raworth author Donut Economics

 

EPILOGUE (running time 2:17)

Economist Randall Wray explains “Wealth and income don’t trickle down. Wealth is more like cream, it rises to the top.”

for more…economists and other critics referenced in this section include: Barbara Ehrenreich author The Worst Years of Our Lives and Nickel and Dimed, and Eric Schlosser author Fast Food Nation