Maeshiro (2016) in “The Capitalist Religion and the Production of Idols“, writes that Capital is the God, and Capitalism is the religion of modern society. Gauthier’s review of Nelson’s Economics As Religion states that “economics became the modern theology that replaced traditional theology as the set of doctrines that give meaning to our social reality and hope to… Read More The Religion of Economics

In my article on “Education of an Economist”, I have explained how I gradually came to realize that all I had learnt during my Ph.D. training at Stanford University was false. I would like to make this more specific and concrete, by providing some examples. A leading example is a paper on Power and Taxes… Read More A Student Among the Econ: Seeing Through Mathemagics

This is part 3 of a talk on Current Economic Crisis in Pakistan and Solutions, from an Islamic Perspective. A summary of the first two parts is given below. This third part explains that colonization requires the assent of the colonized, which is achieved by an educational system which teaches the inherent superiority of the… Read More Decolonization: A Necessary First Step

“A University Economics degree today is more of a lobotomy than an education” – Steve Keen. This is part 2 of a talk on “Current Economic Crisis in Pakistan. For Part 1, see Exploiting the South: Power & Knowledge.  This part explains that one of the barriers to diagnosing the problem, and finding solutions, is the… Read More Bizarre Methodology Blinds Us to Solutions

This is the first of a sequence of posts on the current economic crisis in Pakistan. Although the discussion is in the context of Pakistan, all the poor countries in grips of the modern neo-colonial global system face essentially the same problems. The financial basis of the system is outlined by Jason Hickel in Aid-in-Reverse:… Read More Exploiting the South: Power & Knowledge

Microeconomics textbooks present the infamous “homo economicus” as an ideal of rational behavior. Those who study actual human behavior – in many different disciplines – have come up with overwhelming empirical evidence that we, homo sapiens, fail to live up to this ideal in many different ways. Unlike the homo economicus, we are not The… Read More Is it Rational to be a Sociopath?

{bit.ly/WEApersist} This paper has now been published in RWER Issue 103. I am updating the post below, by adding three items (marked as ADD} which I think would go well as additional items to cover in line with the theme of this article It is easy to establish that many of the core theories used… Read More Why Do Economists Persist in Using False Theories?

This is part D of the first lecture on Gratitude, Contentment, and Trust, part of a free online course on A New Approach to Islamic Economics. Register for course via: http://bit.ly/AZIEML In previous parts of this lecture, we discussed the attributes of gratitude, contentment, and trust, as the behavioral bases for an Islamic approach to… Read More Scientism: Flawed Foundation of Economic Methodology

The two World Wars in the 20th century depleted the gold stocks of European governments and made a return to the (UK Sterling based) gold standard impossible. This led to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, where leaders of the world came together to find an alternative, non-gold-based, global trading system. John Maynard Keynes brought… Read More Origins and Consequences of US Monetary Hegemony

{bit.ly/azGian01A} There is a huge controversy about what money is – especially since the role and function of money has evolved and changed substantially over time. Curzio Giannini’s book “The Age of Central Banks” provides clarity and insight into this topic not easily available elsewhere. We will cover this book in a sequence of posts… Read More State or Market: Mystery of Money